One Example of Trouble
Allow me to give a simple example of the sloppy way that the city has dealt with the budget in the last year. The subject is the gas company and is once again an item of interest this year. But I want to talk about last year. In the 9/29/05 proposed budget for 05-06, the gas revenue was listed as $45,000. During the budget public hearing of 10/18/05, Mr. Sauceda mentioned that the city had already received $126,000 gas revenue for 05-06 and was indeed spending it already. It was verbally agreed that the line item would be changed from +$45,000 to +$126,000.
In the "Adopted Annual Budget" that was finally filed in August 2006 (eleven months late), the amount was still listed as $45,000.
In the August 31, 2006 Statement of Revenue & Expenditure computer printout, this line item was listed as Budgeted Original as $0 and as Budgeted Amended $126,000. But the budget has never been amended.
In the 8/29/06 proposed amended budget, the revenue is listed as $126,000.
There is nothing nefarious about this line item. We had the $126,000 in the bank before the budget was ever passed. But it was entered in the official adopted budget as $45,000 and entered in the computer as $0 and entered without authorization as an amendment as $126,000. This is merely mismanagement of the paper budget and computer budget.
-----
Added Later: Let me add that I point this out as an example of how badly things are managed. This $126,000 amount is the simplest number in the whole budget. Nobody disputes it, dislikes it or wants to change it, yet it is wrong in both the adopted budget and the computer budget. It was not easy to trace this nice round happy number. Imagine how hard it is to track all those other numbers that are less clear!
There are 36 line items in the 05-06 Administration Expenditures budget of $488,812. Mr. Sauceda hopes to change 20 of these line items at the end of the year, increasing ten of them by $110,066 and cutting ten of them by $61,776 for a net increase of $48,290 in administrative expenses. None of these changes have been approved by council yet. Most have already happened. Why do we bother to even debate a budget at the beginning of the year when such huge changes are made at the end and the budget is disregarded in between?
If Mr. Sauceda had to pay for these increases by raising taxes,it would represent an $0.11 raise in the tax rate (per $100 in appraised value) just for administration. Council is busy looking at 06-07 now and the city administrator is trying to slip these changes in at the last minute. He does not even give the budget amendment its own agenda item but lumps it in with passing the 06-07 budget. Furthermore, he tries to hide these proposed changes by including them in the proposed 06-07 budget. Mr. Sauceda did not give council a report on the differences between the adopted 05-06 budget and the proposed amended 05-06 budget. He is betting that council will not take the time to make a line item by line item comparison, we don't need a gambler in city hall.
City Council should reject the Administrator's wild budget amendment. Every line item change should be justified and discussed before being amended. We should amend the budget for obvious things like the $126,000 gas revenue mistake.
We budgeted for one month of the youth program. After citizen complaints, they agreed to do the entire youth program last year, but they never amended the budget to pay for it or found the $17,000 extra to pay for it. The budget should have been amended by ordinance when they changed their mind. They dropped the ball then. Now it is reasonable to amend the budget after the fact to fix that sloppy oversight. But the administrator wants to hide many other problems in this amendment. Council allowed him $13,000 for professional services. He spent $30,000. Instead of sweeping it under the rug with an 11th hour amendment, they should be demanding a full accounting of how and why he overspent that budget item by $17,000.
It is a coincidence that is the same amount of unfunded youth program expense we encountered in the year. This administration and council tosses unfunded $17,000 budget expenses as easily as the administrator passes a $17,000 vehicle purchased through a grant to someone not specified in the grant. Easy money up for grabs on Highland Avenue.
I suggest that we amend the 05-06 budget only for those obvious changes (gas revenue, youth program, 26 math errors) and leave all the other changes for the auditor. If we allow Mr. Sauceda to change the budget at the last minute, the auditor will not be auditing the actual budget, but auditing his attempted cover-up. We will learn nothing. We will repeat forever.
In the "Adopted Annual Budget" that was finally filed in August 2006 (eleven months late), the amount was still listed as $45,000.
In the August 31, 2006 Statement of Revenue & Expenditure computer printout, this line item was listed as Budgeted Original as $0 and as Budgeted Amended $126,000. But the budget has never been amended.
In the 8/29/06 proposed amended budget, the revenue is listed as $126,000.
There is nothing nefarious about this line item. We had the $126,000 in the bank before the budget was ever passed. But it was entered in the official adopted budget as $45,000 and entered in the computer as $0 and entered without authorization as an amendment as $126,000. This is merely mismanagement of the paper budget and computer budget.
-----
Added Later: Let me add that I point this out as an example of how badly things are managed. This $126,000 amount is the simplest number in the whole budget. Nobody disputes it, dislikes it or wants to change it, yet it is wrong in both the adopted budget and the computer budget. It was not easy to trace this nice round happy number. Imagine how hard it is to track all those other numbers that are less clear!
There are 36 line items in the 05-06 Administration Expenditures budget of $488,812. Mr. Sauceda hopes to change 20 of these line items at the end of the year, increasing ten of them by $110,066 and cutting ten of them by $61,776 for a net increase of $48,290 in administrative expenses. None of these changes have been approved by council yet. Most have already happened. Why do we bother to even debate a budget at the beginning of the year when such huge changes are made at the end and the budget is disregarded in between?
If Mr. Sauceda had to pay for these increases by raising taxes,it would represent an $0.11 raise in the tax rate (per $100 in appraised value) just for administration. Council is busy looking at 06-07 now and the city administrator is trying to slip these changes in at the last minute. He does not even give the budget amendment its own agenda item but lumps it in with passing the 06-07 budget. Furthermore, he tries to hide these proposed changes by including them in the proposed 06-07 budget. Mr. Sauceda did not give council a report on the differences between the adopted 05-06 budget and the proposed amended 05-06 budget. He is betting that council will not take the time to make a line item by line item comparison, we don't need a gambler in city hall.
City Council should reject the Administrator's wild budget amendment. Every line item change should be justified and discussed before being amended. We should amend the budget for obvious things like the $126,000 gas revenue mistake.
We budgeted for one month of the youth program. After citizen complaints, they agreed to do the entire youth program last year, but they never amended the budget to pay for it or found the $17,000 extra to pay for it. The budget should have been amended by ordinance when they changed their mind. They dropped the ball then. Now it is reasonable to amend the budget after the fact to fix that sloppy oversight. But the administrator wants to hide many other problems in this amendment. Council allowed him $13,000 for professional services. He spent $30,000. Instead of sweeping it under the rug with an 11th hour amendment, they should be demanding a full accounting of how and why he overspent that budget item by $17,000.
It is a coincidence that is the same amount of unfunded youth program expense we encountered in the year. This administration and council tosses unfunded $17,000 budget expenses as easily as the administrator passes a $17,000 vehicle purchased through a grant to someone not specified in the grant. Easy money up for grabs on Highland Avenue.
I suggest that we amend the 05-06 budget only for those obvious changes (gas revenue, youth program, 26 math errors) and leave all the other changes for the auditor. If we allow Mr. Sauceda to change the budget at the last minute, the auditor will not be auditing the actual budget, but auditing his attempted cover-up. We will learn nothing. We will repeat forever.
posted by RobC at 11:49 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home