BUDGET WORKSHOPS PREDICT NO TAX RATE INCREASE!
In case you don’t know it, your City Manager has been meeting regularly with the City Council in a series of Budget Workshops in which he sought overall policy direction and then bounced his 2010-2011 budget proposal off the Council for their reaction. It is the Manager’s job to present the budget to the Council in July and it essentially is being done through these Workshop Meetings where there is freewheeling discussion and a lot of consensus decisions made.
The meetings are legally advertised, minutes are taken and they are televised and recorded. The only things missing from a regular meeting are formal structure, formal votes and citizen input. In other words, you and I have had absolutely no input in forming the Council’s goals and objectives for the coming year and absolutely no input on the consensus agreements between the Manager and the Council on the actual budget document. To be sure, the final document will be presented and voted upon in a regular meeting, but citizen input at this late date, after firm Council decisions have been made at the Workshop level will most likely be ignored and even considered a nuisance.
While our local news medium covers City Council Meetings, they do not cover Workshop Meetings. Yes, minutes are available and there is a video of the meetings on the internet. Let’s face it, the vast majority of us will read a short article in a newspaper a lot quicker than going to the internet to look up a meeting about which one has little or no knowledge. Citizens are far more likely to attend a meeting in which they can put their two cents worth in than one in which they can only watch. If you are a reader of this blog, chances are your two cents would help produce a better budget in the end.
My point is that altogether too much of the important city business is being done in semi-secret meetings and unofficial, but firm decisions are being made on our behalf without an ounce of citizen participation. Workshops work, as we shall see later, but they should be covered by the press and citizen input should not only be allowed, but encouraged.
Having flogged the process, I am now bound to say that the Budget Workshop Meetings have been very productive, open, informative, (especially to Council Members), and appear well on the way to producing a workable budget in bad times without having to resort to Draconian measures in order to get it to balance.
While members will claim that no actual decisions have been made, lets take a look at the consensus agreements between the City Manager and the Council that have been made in Workshop. I’ll wager my lunch that almost all of them will be represented in the final document.
- The Operating Budget will be about $9.9 million, (down from over $11 million a couple of years ago).
- The mill rate will remain at 3.4742 for 2010-2011. Unless your assessment went up since last year you will be paying the same or less than last year.
- Services to taxpayers will not be visibly reduced. Staff required to produce them will be working harder since there will be less of them. Some services will be more “no frills” than in the past.
- Fees for some services will go up. In the past, the city sold some services for less than they cost, so they subsidized them out of reserves or the general fund. Most subsidies will be gone and enterprise fund balances will be used in the General Fund. Our deal for water from St. Petersburg requires that we must charge the same or more as St. Pete’s retail rate. We are a little over their rate now, but will probably have to increase our rate when they set theirs in September. In a comparison with 11 comparable cities, our rates were toward the center or lower end of the comparative scale. It is anticipated that comparably we will be in a similar position once the adjustments are made in our rates.
- There will be no merit or cost of living raises to non-contract city employees.
- There will be no layoffs of city employees. Substantial savings in payroll have been achieved through attrition and reshuffling of remaining employees by the administration. No real streamlining or reorganization appears to have taken place.
- Capital improvements will be lean this year. The goal this year is to build up funds for next year. The Manager has indicated that for the first time, the city might borrow money through low interest, state sponsored bonding programs to complete our sewer and water projects all at once instead of stringing them out over many years. This may be a wise move in that interest rates and construction costs are unlikely to ever be as low as they are now.
- The low-income senior exemption, offered by most cities will finally be offered by Gulfport in 2010-2011. This is an additional $25,000 exemption offered to very low income, homesteaded home owners that may be offered by cities in Florida. Director of Administration and Finance, Dan Carpenter estimated that this benefit would have very little impact on the city’s revenues.
In an effort to analyze the impact of the low-income senior exemption, Dan Carpenter queried the County Tax Dept. and discovered that there are only 2211 Homesteaded properties in Gulfport out of approximately 6300 residences. This figure would indicate that about 2/3 of homes in Gulfport are occupied by non-citizens and/or renters. Since non-citizens, (snowbirds), cant vote and renters are less likely to participate in government affairs, its no wonder that our government leaders get away with some of the things they do.
Another thing I learned is that our budget is essentially on a cash basis in that costs of replacement of assets are only recorded as they are paid. There are no funds set up for replacement of city assets such as our sewer and water system, our public buildings, roads or other long term assets. It was only 2 years ago that the state forced us to provide annual depreciation figures on our water system thnat this year alone would be over $450,000. Preserving our $4.5 million surplus seems all the more important when one considers what massive breakdowns or disasters could do to us.
It was also interesting to note that when Council Member Hastings asked about the costs to provide certain specific services, no one seemed to know what these costs are. I found this interesting in that these questions have come up before and there is still no cost analysis available. How on earth can the city decide, on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis whether or not to retain or drop marginal services. Even if it is decided to run a program at a loss for social reasons, it is important to know how much the city subsidy is going to cost. The money has to come from somewhere.
Apparently, the plan is to do the line by line budget analysis in Workshop and then present a fait a accompli at some future Regular Meeting where taxpayers will have 3 whole minutes to ask whatever questions or make whatever constructive comments they wish on the city’s entire $9.9 million budget. My suggestion is that interested parties should attend the Workshop sessions, take notes and then flood the Council with questions or comments in the Public Comments Section of the next Regular Council Meeting .
There are some catch phrasess often used in the world of accounting…..”The devil is in the details” and “figures lie and liars figure”.
I am not suggesting anyone is lying but I am quite curious to know how we’ve gone from a millage rate of 3.8 to 3.4 in just a couple weeks and haven’t had the 1st line item review nor received the explanation of costs. What was the point of approving 3.8 if the finance department has already decided that the rate will be 3.4? Sounds like a little sandbagging going on. The question would be.. is this in tandem with members of council to make them look good so that they can voice their bravdo over how they didn’t raise taxes?!? Or is staff going to come back with a list of unjustified savings as they did last year? You’ll recall the most recent audit report indicated that the city had a deficit of $300k this past year. Why is that?? Because staff presented a budget that was based on savings that were overstated by $300K. In essence, the city is currently operating on an unbalanced budget. If I’m not mistaken, that is against the law. Of course no one one Council seems to have a concern with this in light of recent unbudgeted expenditures and staff certainly isn’t going to tout it if no one is asking about it. 1)WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO RECOUP THE $300k?
2)WHERE ARE THE DETAILS OF THE SAVINGS TO BE CARRIED OVER THIS YEAR TO GET DOWN TO 3.4%?
3) IT APPEARS TO ME THAT AT LEAST $600K IS REQUIRED IN SAVINGS IN ADDITION TO THE SHORTAGE TO BE RECOGNIZED AS A RESULT OF THE LOWER PROPERTY VALUES. Where is this coming from?
4) PURPORTEDLY “Substantial savings in payroll have been achieved” — “Substanitial”, “fantastic”, “alot” significant”, etc. etc. they all sound good, but have no meaning without supporting data. WHERE IS IT?
A couple months ago the Council had a brainstorming session to think outside the box. Some members thought outside the box while others shot down their associates’ ideas only to grandstand their own. And the Mayor, he of course likes status quo. Part of the exercise of this brianstorming session was to priortize ideas. Council memebers each identified their priorities with post it notes placed on the charts where the ideas had been captured. Staff was going to assimmilate all thes ideas and priorities and the Council was to have another session to discuss next steps. What happened to this? Are these documents in the public record? Why wasn’t this exercise completed? OR was the real purpose of this exercise to get Council to say the magic words…”no reduction in services”?
Last year the budget committe recommended that the residents be surveyed for their ideas on how to reduce costs or increase revenues. Hundreds of ideas were presented. Staff compiled the responses in a very elementary report and we’ve heard nothing since. This, IMO, is a huge indication of how much respect the staff and council have for their constituents. What happened to these ideas? Were any of them analyzed for benefit vs. cost? I’ll go out on a limb and say NO!! WHY? And why is no one on Council asking this question?
A few years ago, taxpayersin Florida spoke up and said that government needs to operate more efficiently. Last year, when it appeared that the millage rate may go up, the Council Chambers were filled with people protesting any type of increase. many of these people came from the sub-city “behind the wall” and said the exact same thing: governement must operate more efficiently! many of these people were business owners/ executives who also said that it is time for government to operate like a business! Does anybody really believe that is happening in Gulfport? If you think so, tell me how reducing staff to the point that the Director of Finance, who earns approx $100k (with benefits), has to answer water bill phone calls is efficient? Maybe this is why he has to be told to compile the cost of services? The Code Enforcement Officer does clerical work and one of the city planners is collecting and tabulating contest entries to rename our downtown. We pay the trash collectors for eight hours work but they only work 6 – 6.5. The IT department costs approx. $200K per year for two people and the city website has essentially no on-line capabilities. How is any of this efficient? This would never fly in the world of business.
This city needs to take a look at every operation and analyze it for actual productivity and measure that against costs. It is time for the City of Gulfport to become proactive and progressive in it’s operations!! the point of no return is closer than you think and or want to believe.
Off the cuff cost assessments seemed to be a sticking point. Both Salmon and Hastings dug for answers though they were told that capital depreciation was assessed on another account.
Dr. Salmon requested that the total cost per service offered be outlined for assessment. With this in hand the council could get a grip on cost, depreciation, and subsidy.
Knowing the cost and the income they can create a budget and set fees for services and millage rates for property with a sense of fairness and accountability.
Henderson made a point that I think was important and that is, it’s not all about the numbers, otherwise they could just let Dan Carpenter run the show and the Council would not need to be involved. There is an element of redistribution to consider and that is the complicated portion of the job.
I agree that Sam’s point is VERY valid. However, in order to make the tough decisions the city must know it’s actual costs. They may also be able to reduce / offset costs if they were to put more effort into analyzing productivity and also utilizing technology.
Another thing they need to do is a cost benefit analysis of potentially outsourcing certain functions such as IT, Sanitation, Building Dep’t., etc. It may not be cost effective to outsource, but these are things that should be investigated. Again, this is something a responsible staff should do proactively. They should not have to be told to gather these numbers.
If you watched today’s (8/16) Budget Workshop one of the things you learned is that the directors are having to do some of the work of the non-exempt (hourly) employees because there is insufficient staff to accomplish all of the tasks. For example, Dan Carpenter, has to jump in and help with customer service calls related to water bills. Considering Dan earns ~$100K per year in salary and benefits that means taxpayers are being charged $48/hr. for his customer service talents. Nevermind that this effort takes time away from his primary duties and that we are not fully utilizing the expertise for which he was hired. Consider that even if he only spends an average of 30 minutes per day on this side activity, that amounts to over $6000/year–for 130 hrs. A full-time customer service employee could probably be hired for $30,000-36,000/yr.incl. benefits for 2080 hrs. of work. (52×40). That’s 16 times the amount of work for 6 times the amount of money. Doesn’t the current arrangement seem penney wise and pound foolish? What am I missing?
mtober said= Doesn’t the current arrangement seem penney wise and pound foolish? What am I missing?
Maybe we should outsource Mr. Carpenter’s duties since he has so much time on his hands and we really don’t need a full time employee? Hiring additional employees would not address the issue. If they need someone to answer the phone they can outsource that task as well. A salary, benefits, full health insurance and a pension for someone answering a phone is hardly justifiable.
Looking carefully at the cost of employment.. v.. subcontracting one quickly realizes that there are immediate and long-term benefits built-in to outsourcing. Examine the Insurance debate and Pension plan discussion during that workshop and you could see the savings long term.
A discussion needs to begin that considers all management and the cost effectiveness just like the discussion that was held for an attorney. We didn’t need a full time attorney, as we may not need other management positions on a full time basis.
Please watch the video……I am confident that Mr. Carpenter DOES NOT have time on his hands. The time he spends on customer service calls and non-management issues takes away from the leadership aspect of his job. If he didn’t have to get involved in those issues he might have the time to do the cost benefit analysis of service costs and also analyze the call volumes and determine the root cause of those issues and determine potential improvement opportunities, perhaps with TECHNOLOGY or enhanced processes or both. The bottom line is that this city operation is not forward thinking and prefers the status quo. In fairness, part of the blame belongs to the citizenry who apparently think that there is some magic fairy that is going to pay for all the services while they enjoy continued decreases in property tax rates. This city is now on the fast track to bankruptcy unless things change quickly.Unfortunately the city council doesn’t have the fortitude to address that despite the fact they have been warned by both the City Manager and Mr. Carpenter
If Mr. Carpenter is leading someone they should answer the phone, which would increase cost effectiveness I suspect, and speak to his management skills. If answering a phone is below his pay grade then he should delegate his authority. Even proprietors of lucrative businesses answer their own phones sometimes, it’s not like Dan sits on a customer service phone all day.
I’ve seen how this city and others operate mtober, very compartmentalized.
Example= there has been a table and some branches sitting on City easement property for three months and will most likely sit there for three years as the City trash trucks drive by three times a week. The pile does not fit into any category so no truck stops to pick it up. You would think that someone would see the trash and want the City’s property to be inviting, but not at the expense of de-compartmentalizing their duties.
Mr. Carpenters job is NOT task specific, he is the manager and as manager he needs to be able and willing to do every job in front of him or delegate it to his work force. If the job is too much then maybe outsourcing it should be considered to meet the work load requirements and save on a 6 figure salary, Long Term Health Insurance, Life insurance, Health Insurance, Vacations and a Pension plan.
Some want to reduce the budget while retaining their friends and favorite employees, some want to reduce the budget, some want to increase revenue. What is the priority?
I don’t want anyone to loose their jobs but we can’t continue to relieve minimum wage employee positions and then complain when the only thing that’s left is supervisors who find it beneath their pay grade to answer the phone. We have a Planning department that had three city planners, what are they planning? We have a Fire department that had three lieutenants. We have a Police Department with 29 employees and 9 supervisors.
Now all we hear from every corner is how the staff is sacrificing pay increases that we owe them. Listen to the Major at the council meeting on 8-17 promising to make up the lost income when the city can afford it. This mindset is toxic, its an unfunded mandate that just spills out of the Mayor like exhaust fumes.
How about demonstrating that the increases are justifiable? How much of a crime reduction have we experienced since our new Chief revamped the department? Was the 49th street overlay project worth 2 years of three planners compensation? Prove it.
Where is the cost analysis? Are the potholes being filled? Prove it.
Some like to compare this City to corporate operations so let’s compare. If 200 trucks were vandalized in a freight shippers parking lot and they paid $3.9 million dollars for security, what would the CEO do? Well 200+ houses will be burglarized this year and the Mayor has nothing but praise for the responsible party. The problem with government is that they get paid before the work is done. There is no competition, and the wolves assess their own chicken coops.
If the budget need to be reduced then examine the inefficiencies and be willing to cut. Moving chairs on the Titanic will do little to keep it afloat. If what your saying mtober is accurate and the City is positioning itself to sink then sometimes it’s necessary to trough the big gun overboard.
2iview, where are you getting this 200+ residential burglary number? Last year (2009), we had 132 burglaries total. Not all of these were residences. Some were businesses, vehilces and “curtilage” or a fenced in yard. In 2008 we had 165 total burglaries. In 2007 we had 130. 200 plus???????? Not this year. We have a little more than 4 more months for the calendar year. I bet we will see that burglaries will be lower than last year.
And the responsible party for high crime are criminals, just fyi.
Excuse me Watchman; I don’t have this year’s statistics just yet, but observing the reports in the media, averaging 4 burglaries per week, I created a hypothetical assessment.
Let me rewrite the hypothetical using your numbers and see if that makes you and our citizens more comfortable.
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Some like to compare this City to corporate operations so let’s compare. If 132 trucks (and trailers) were vandalized in a freight shipper’s parking lot, and they paid $3.9 million dollars for security, what would the CEO do? Well 132+/- houses (or property) will be burglarized this year and the Mayor has nothing but praise for the responsible party. The problem with government is that they get paid before the work is done. There is no competition, and the wolves assess their own chicken coops.
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The responsible party for securing the trucks in the parking lot in my hypothetical was the trucking companies management who paid a security department to carry out the task. The responsible party for securing personal property is the property owner in this city, who pays a police department to carry out the task.
In my former post I wrote that the police department has 29 employees and 9 supervisors…I should have written that there are 29 police officers in the department, 9 of which are supervisors.
Compartmentalization to the Max. 1 supervisor for every 2.22 employees.
Observing your own statistics from a distance, (pick any State) and then reading the national data on Gulfport, would you, as a Watchman, find the City of Gulfport Florida to be a place to retire? How about a safe place to raise a family? Sure, if you live in Kipp’s Coral, a gated community with it’s own private security, but not in the open City.
A 31 year old woman who maced her mother, cousin and children, hitting some with a hammer in May returns to the streets of Gulfport and then hits a citizen with an axe on the sidewalk while she was holding an infant. This doesn’t sound like a safe place to me…sounds like Hell’s Kitchen, South Central, East St. Louis or any other jungle in the inner Cities of America. Gulfport is becoming the inner City of St. Petersburg and under the present leadership, I suspect, it will only get worse.
References for the Cinderella Lavine saga
May 2010
Police have arrested a Gulfport woman on charges that she sprayed mace at her mother and hit her cousin in the head with a hammer.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/woman-accused-of-spraying-elderly-mother-with-mace-attacking-cousin-with/1098232
August 2010
GULFPORT — A 31-year-old mother is accused of using a hatchet to rob and attack another mother while the victim was holding her newborn daughter, according to Gulfport police.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/gulfport-mother-accused-of-attacking-another-mother-with-hatchet/1116072
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Welcome to Gulfport Florida
Gulfport, FL, violent crime, on a scale from 1 (low crime) to 10, is 6. Violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. The US average is 4.
Gulfport, FL, property crime, on a scale from 1 (low) to 10, is 6. Property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims. The US average is 4.
http://www.bestplaces.net/
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According to our research of the Florida and other state lists there were 19 registered sex offenders living in Gulfport in April 2010.
The ratio of number of residents in Gulfport to the number of sex offenders is 649 to 1.
http://www.city-data.com/
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-2008 data-
Forcible Rape 2
Robbery 27
Aggravated Assault 34
Burglary 132
Larceny, Theft 393
Motor Vehicle Theft 48
http://www.idcide.com/citydata/fl/gulfport.htm
2iview you are correct no one should be compartmentalized and everyone has to do tasks that are not necessairily their primary role. Carpenter’s staff does a good job and the reason he is involved in calls is because customers won’t take no from the subordinates and / or there is a lack of info and or resources available to satisfy the caller without personal intervention.
The point of mine above is that the Directors spend alot of time doing things that take away from the time / opportunity to analyze processes and attempt to initiate improvements, technology etc., because of the limited staff and to maintain purported customer service levels though I am not sure that they have even been quantified.
This city has alot of opportunity to become more efficient and save money long term and 95-99% of it has nothing to do with people not working or not doing a good job. The bottom line is that the organizations needs to analyze processes in detail including creating flow charts and identify the opportunities for improvement and do the necessary cost benefit analysis’ to go with this. There are many ways to do this with Six Sigma among them. Then a decision needs to be made as to whether the city wants to continue to operate circa 1980-90 or actually move into the 21st century thru technology, less paper shuffling and less customer hand holding.
Big Dog would like a line budget analysis, mtober would like to analyze the budget for actual productivity and measure that against costs, Mr. Hastings and Mrs. Salmon would like to see an operational analysis and I would like to see what the cost of these operations would be in the open market. I’m sure we wouldn’t need to supply any of the City’s contractors with a personal car and the fuel to operate them, insurance packages or pension plans.
Keep in mind, if you will, that it was these supervisors who thought that the bloated staff that we had was necessary. They built the bloated government and they built-in the redundancy. The Mayor and previous City Council went to great lengths to retain an in-house City Manager who was recommended by the last City Manager, who thought it best to retain an in-house Police Chief who was recommended by the last Chief of Police. What has really changed besides the part time City attorney, the names on the doors?
What would have been discovered by an outside City Manager or Chief of Police and what might have changed had those choices been made?
Doing a Cost-Benefit Analysis for all City operations will give the citizens and their representatives a logical means of approaching the budget issues. Frankly, I think that the assessment should be outsourced, given the ramifications of the facts and findings that some here at Watchdogs suspect may not reflect rational budgetary standards. Your mileage may vary.