Misadministration

[Blogger Note: This post is my summary of the administrative problems that Marfa has faced for the last two years. It is rather long. This is simply my opinion. My objective is to remind others of many of the problems that have brought the city to this point. Other people might have other issues that they would like to raise. Some might disagree with me. That's fine. Anything that leads to citizen discussion and civic improvement is a good thing. By the way, I have now heard two rumors that I would be the next city administrator. This rumor is completely false. Just because I want to see the job done competently does not mean I want the job!]

The new council has every right to select a new administrator. This person is responsible for implementing council's policies and informing council about city matters that need attention. This is not a popularity contest. The question is this: Does his track record of administering the city affairs give the new council confidence that he can get the job done for them?

It is no secret that I think Marfa is poorly served by the current administrator. I presented a petition to council on January 9, 2007 signed by 46 people asking for Sauceda's dismissal.

Permit Subcommittee

Two years ago, a finance committee was established to find additional revenue during the budget preparation process. I was asked to participate in a subcommittee to look into some issues related to building permit revenue.

I took the request seriously and did the best job I could. In hindsight, I did a better job than the administration wanted. Any suggestions to improve the way Marfa manages construction within the city were met with considerable resistance from the Mayor. I worked closely with Council Members Martinez and Petrosky to make sure the proposal was something that they wanted as elected officials. All changes to the later drafts were requested by council members.

When Mayor Lanman publicly stated that he opposed the idea because it would hurt his remodeling business, I was in disbelief. I thought that a proper discussion at the city council level would lead to a wise decision in the best interest of the city, not its mayor. It appears that I was wrong.

At that time, I was naive enough to believe that a matter that included the efforts of two council members over a span of several weeks would be easy to get on the agenda for "discussion and consideration." I was certainly wrong on that point. Sauceda refused to place it on the agenda for several months, at the request of Mayor Lanman. Under Sauceda, Marfa's oversight of construction has decreased during the biggest building boom in decades.

I now believe that Lorina Chavez was right when she said the system was broken and she was quitting council: "My role as councilmember and mayor protem has been difficult and stressful. The staff, mayor and city council have been unable to accomplish positive results for the betterment of the City of Marfa." She resigned during the last budget cycle when Lanman and Sauceda were at the top of their game to thwart progress by council. I should have backed out long before then.

From Lawsuit to Love

I am sure you all recall the animosity between David Lanman and Florencio Sauceda in May and June 2005. Lanman had just been elected mayor in May. Sauceda had been hired as administrator that previous February. This was the first election cycle that Sauceda managed in Marfa. By all accounts, it was managed poorly. Sauceda was criticized for the situation, and there were calls for his job. Lanman, heady from his election victory and peeved about the delay in installing him in office, tangled with Sauceda. One of the more memorable quotes from that time was when Lanman told Sauceda that he heard "death rattles." This rather crude political comment was an analogy to the gurgling sound in a dying man's throat. Sauceda took the comment as a death threat and proceeded to initiate a lawsuit against the new mayor.

A Smelly Deal

Sauceda started working on the ORCA pool grant on the day he started. Curtis Schrader wrote that successful grant application, and it was awarded in May 2004. City Council fired Schrader in Spetember 2004. The interim city administrator, Henry Moon, had been moving this project along and handed it off to Sauceda. During Sauceda's first month, March 2005, council struck a curious deal with Presidio City Administrator Tom Nance. Tom Nance would administer the ORCA pool grant "at no grant cost" for Marfa in exchange for Presidio's use of Marfa's sewer jet equipment. Marfa stood to save $15,000 in grant administration fees. It seemed like a good deal, but Mayor Martinez was suspicious and spoke with great concern and wisdom in avoiding the deal.

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

One month later, a group of four people including Sauceda, Nance, Council Member Rivera and a representative from the engineering firm GSWW met in a closed meeting to open the bids for the prime contractor for the pool. The date was April 8, 2005. Mayor Martinez had previously announced that bids would be opened in a special public meeting at 4:30PM on Wednesday, March 30, 2005. The bid opening meeting was delayed for some reason and changed from an open meeting to a closed meeting.

There were two bids. A detailed bid from Galvan's Construction in Fort Stockton with itemized cost breakdowns and references to the engineering specifications, and a one-line-item bid from AllStar I&E from Deer Park, Texas, near Houston. The grant allowed $231,000 for construction. The proper bid from Galvan was $265,000, and the one-page bid from AllStar was $249,000. GSWW rejected the AllStar bid as "informal and irregular." Look at it yourself: AllStar's bid. AllStar's bid was dated April 8th (the same day that bids were opened), even though the mayor announced that bids would be opened March 30th.

I'll spare the details for now, but let me say that Sauceda spent much of that summer arguing with the engineers on the project to get them to work with AllStar as the "low-bidder" even though their bid was a joke. Sauceda succeeded in getting GSWW fired as the engineer and AllStar hired as the prime contractor.

Here's the kicker. Nobody ever informed council that Tom Nance was the second-cousin to the owners of AllStar I&E. I verified this recently in a search of public records. It is not clear who knew the details at that time. Martinez was suspicious. He was right. In May of 2005, Tom Nance was fired as the City Administrator of Presidio for unpleasant reasons that do not matter to this story. He then worked for AllStar as an employee on Marfa's pool project.

Getting back to the story line, Lanman and Sauceda were threatening lawsuits in June of 2005 a month after Nance was fired. In August of 2005, Sauceda asked council for a raise because he would be taking over the grant administration from Nance. For reasons that I still find bewildering, Lanman and Mayor Pro Tem Dobay gave Sauceda a 25 percent raise in August (without council approval). Lanman and Sauceda went from suing each other to being the closest of allies two months later, courtesy of a pay raise funded by taxpayers. It seems that Lanman realized he could get more leverage if he rewarded Sauceda with tax dollars instead of suing Sauceda with his own dollars.

Budget Woes

After I started looking into budget documents and procedures for the city, I realized that we were in serious trouble. Budgets have been passed late, published even later, filed incorrectly, changed without authority, ignored, and edited with whiteout and no respect to the third R, 'rithmetic.

Do you remember when Lanman and Sauceda rambled up to the September 30th budget deadline without preparing a proper budget and then tried to ram it down council's throat by calling a last-hour special meeting hoping to use the threat of failing to adopt a budget to force their hand? Council balked because the budget was not ready; quorum failed. That gamble cost the city $30,000 to $40,000. History repeats itself. A similar thing happened the year before.

On the second go around, the council was unable to raise property taxes at any rate because Sauceda had failed to publish proper notices as required by state law.

Here are some more specific complaints that I have.

Financial Problems

1. Missed Budget Deadline: The mayor is the chief budget officer and responsible for the overall budget. The administrator is charged with the details of putting the budget together. Lanman was hands-off to the extreme on budget matters and delegated much to Sauceda. Sauceda has seen two budget cycles in Marfa. The first year the budget was passed three weeks late. The second year the budget was passed ten weeks late. In both cases, Sauceda did not prepare a final printed copy of the budget for council to vote on. All they had was a draft and a slew of verbal changes.
   
   After council approved the budget, Sauceda failed to deliver an official copy of the budget to council in a timely matter. In his first year, the official copy of the budget was not presented to council until ten months into the fiscal year. In his second year, an incomplete draft was presented to council in the fifth month. I believe a formal copy was provided in the seventh month if at all.
   
   In both cases, the city was unable to raise property taxes as needed because the flawed budget process was not completed on time as required by state law. The mayor and council deserve some responsibility for this failure, but council was unable to adopt the budget on time because it simply was not ready by the deadline.
   
   
2. Unauthorized Budget Changes: His first budget was a comedy of errors. When he finally produced the official version ten months late, he used whiteout to make edits instead of the computer. There were dozens of math errors. He made unauthorized line item changes to the budget. There were three versions of the budget: what council passed, what Sauceda published, and what was entered in the accounting computer. Some of the differences were thousands of dollars. On top of that, Sauceda entered an unauthorized budget amendment into the computer without council approval and blamed it on "program limitations." All subsequent expenditure reports were based on an unapproved budget amendament.
   
   
3. Spend then Amend: State law is clear. Municipalities cannot spend beyond the budget. Sauceda ignored the budget both years and spent as he wished. His method is to spend and then amend the budget at the end of the year to make it reflect his actual expenses. I remember sitting in his office as he explained to me that the standard operating procedure for cities was to ignore the budget and then amend it at the end of the year to reflect actual expenses. Months later I found the Texas State Comptroller budget manual that acknowledged this bad municipal habit and frowned upon the practice: "Although it has been fairly common practice, the budget should never be amended at the end of the year merely to make all budgeted amounts equal actual expenditures."
   
   
4. Former Mayor Lanman purchased $2,995 worth of useless glass doors to keep pesky citizens out of city hall. Lanman had no purchase authority. Sauceda covered for him and claimed he had authority using his $3,000 limit for budgeted purchases. Unfortunately, the doors were never budgeted and his move was illegal, yet successful.
   
   Grant Problems
   
   
5. The ORCA pool grant has been completely mismanaged as has been discussed already.
   
   
6. The ORCA library grant has gotten off to a poor start with many reports of delays due to grant administration problems caused by Sauceda.
   
   
7. The RGCOG code enforcement grant, awarded in November 2005, has been a joke. This was a grant to fund someone to inspect for illegal dumping sites. Sauceda turned it into La Vista weed patrol. The grant was for about $35,000 with half going towards first year salary and half going towards a vehicle for the inspector. Sauceda bought the police chief a $17,500 car and spent $3,000 tricking it out as an unmarked police car. The car was charged against the police capital expense budget which was only budgeted at $3800 for some guns which had already been purchased. That was in last year's budget. He never drew the money for that vehicle, probably because it was not used for the intended purpose. The result is that the city bought an unmarked unbudgeted police chief car. The city took delivery of the car and put it in service before council voted on the matter and before Marfa even paid for the car. Since when does somebody looking for illegal dump sites need hidden emergency lights and a radar? Wouldn't a simple half-ton truck be better anyway?
   
   Sauceda and the chief could not agree on a candidate for the position so it was never filled. After the chief left, Sauceda gave the responsibility to the acting police chief. But this officer was already overworked as the department was severely understaffed. It seems to be an attempt to make it look like he had filled the position. I have not seen any report that any grant money has been requested for this grant.
   
   
8. One bright spot is the recycling grant which was written by a citizen. The success of this grant so far has depended heavily on her active participation.
   
   Paperwork Problems
   
   
9. The mess with the minutes has been documented. Minutes were properly managed before Sauceda's arrival and have been mismanaged since. While the front office staff could do a better job, the administrator is responsible for managing their work and priorities. The buck stops at his desk when minutes are not done properly for two straight years. Council needs an administrator that will respect the importance of the official record of council's decisions. After a few months in office, Sauceda had a backlog of minutes for seven meetings that were all approved at one meeting. That was 2005. When this new council has their first meeting on May 31st, 2007, there might be minutes for nine meetings (including the last regular meeting and two recent special meetings) that need to be approved! History repeats itself.
   
   
10. The expenditure reports are based on faulty data entered into the budget computer. About thirty percent of the numbers in the 18-page report that he gives council (monthly maybe) are simply wrong.
    
    
11. When he first arrived, Sauceda was instructed by council to prepare job descriptions for all positions in the city. This has never been done.
    
    
12. After Sauceda sold his second week of vacation back to the city, council asked him to put the employee manual on the agenda to close that loophole. He put it on the agenda but intentionally made it a non-action item so that council could not close the loophole. Despite requests from Council Member Martinez, Sauceda did not return it to the agenda until a special meeting after the election but before the new council was installed. There was no quorum and the matter remains unresolved.
    
    Travel Time
    
    
13. Sauceda's travel schedule has calmed down this year, probably due to vehicle problems and renewed public interest in the matter. His contract gives him seven travel days and discretionary travel time. It seems he has taken full advantage of "discretionary time" to commute most weekends back to his home near the gulf. Marfa offered to pay his relocation expenses for his family, but he never moved to Marfa.
    

Both budget cycles have been disasters under Sauceda's tenure. As a result, property taxes have been frozen at a rate that existed before he arrived. The first two elections under his tenure were handled poorly. The old council gave him plenty of opportunities to respond to their requests. In many cases, he simply disregarded their requests or gave his pat answer, "staff is working on it," followed by no work.

History repeats itself. Take a look at a blog from six months ago that described his troubles as administrator at other cities. Notice any resemblance?

As I mentioned the other day, Mayor Lanman received a bad news letter from ORCA on February 2, 2007 listing some serious deficiencies in Sauceda's grant administration work. Neither one of them mentioned this letter to council at the next meeting on February 13th when council voted to renew Sauceda's contract for 19 months. When an administrator withholds important information from the governing body, he should be fired not rewarded.

It's time for a change. Change is good. When a state grant-awarding agency complains about the administrator's filing and accounting systems, it is time to clean house.