It seems appropriate that the Shoreacres City Council met tonight on the eve of the expected “federal government shutdown” caused by the Democrats refusal to eliminate waivers for Congress from the effects of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Of course, the “federal government shutdown” isn’t really a shutdown but only a temporary closing of offices that the Democrats think will help their cause. But I digress.
This might be the strangest post I’ve ever written, which is saying a lot because I’ve written some really strange ones in 15+ years of doing this. If you’ve been following my posts on Shoreacres, you know that we are in a devil of a bind financially. Perhaps we can all point fingers but frankly, I can’t because I didn’t attend the council meetings in the past that got us to this point, so I’ll have to suck it up and absorb the impact of the current council’s decisions.
Here is the layout of the land. The current mayor, Matt Webber, was on the previous council and was appointed mayor by the current council after the previous mayor, Mayor Dolly Arons, resigned. She resigned graciously after the last round of elections, hoping that the city would come together to solve the problems, perceived or real. Unfortunately Mayor Matt Webber proposed an increase in a budget that was already in deficit territory. You’ll have to ask him why he did that – I did and his answer is online. The budget deficit he proposed was $846,342.15 out of a total combined budget of $2,787,072.17, or 30.4{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}.
Fortunately, council rejected his budget and scheduled a workshop for this evening. Unfortunately, I do not have a spreadsheet or actual budgeted numbers that resulted from this workshop. The rest of this report is in four phases: me as a taxpayer, me as an observer of politics, me as a voter/resident, and a hero award.
As a taxpayer
To say that I was disappointed in the cuts made is an understatement. Sort of like how I felt after Matt Schaub gave up yet another pick six on Sunday and seeing the Texans lose a game they should have won. The value of my home took a hit as council decided that it was more important to spend our savings account on daily activities than it was to cut spending or increase fees for water usage. If people that ran for elected office do not understand that putting Shoreacres in a financial hole hurts our property values, who does? After all, they live here too.
As an observer of politics
I knew that this was going to happen going in. In fact, in response to a couple of emails, I told people that this council was not going to address the hard issue, which is the increase in personnel costs the past six years. It was easy to see if you attended previous meetings. The Mayor couldn’t bring himself to address it and the council, with the singular exception of Alderman Nancy Schnell, followed his lead. The body language of the rest of the council was clear – we will not cut personnel. The only personnel cuts that I saw were not replacing positions that were budgeted but were empty. I’ve been observing various political bodies for an awful long time and I think that we got as much as we could have expected, given Mayor Matt Webber’s insistence on deficit spending.
As a voter
As I looked around at the members of council, I voted for all but two – and one of those was appointed. So I was very happy, as a voter, that the people that I voted for at least attempted to correct the problem. We’ll have to wait until Thursday for City Administrator Stall to put the new proposed budget online but I think the total reduction, from Mayor Webber’s proposed $846,342.15 deficit, will be $384,000, or a new proposed deficit of roughly $462,342, or 19{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the combined budget. Not good at all but much, much better than the Mayor’s proposal. Alderman Bo Bunker showed good leadership by presenting his reduced budget and his rationale behind it. He led the charge tonight. Good on him.
Nancy Schnell gets ‘Courageous’ award
Hey, I’ve criticized her in the past, I have to give her credit when she deserves it. I think that without her efforts, Mayor Webber’s almost a million in deficit spending for the year would have sailed through council. As it is, the deficit spending, as budgeted tonight, will be less than half a million. I consider that a huge victory for Shoreacres taxpayers and I applaud her for her efforts. She was roundly criticized in several emails and flyers for suggesting that personnel had to be cut to balance the budget. It is disconcerting that no one on council agreed with her but if you look at the severity of the problem, you cannot conclude anything other but that she is right about that. And I suspect that she will be able to convince other members on council about that in the long run. But for now, she did what she could and should be recognized for her efforts.
So there you go. Stall will type up the numbers and the council will present the “new” proposed deficit spending budget at the next council meeting, which I think is on October 14th. I don’t think that there is anything you or I can do to reduce it further, or convince the current Mayor and Council that it needs to be further reduced. The only thing you or I can do is show up, speak our minds, and then vote in the next round of elections. At least they put half a tourniquet on to stem the flow of spending.
Interesting perspective from someone who voiced support for changing from CLEMCY to LaPorte EMS services at an additional cost of $100,000.00. Where exactly do you propose that money would come from? You yourself stated that the city spent the past six year getting to this point. Did you really expect that everthing would be reversed in one years budget? I never recieved an email from you during the whole budget process expressing any reccomendations to the budget, only snippets on your blog with criticisms of how council was handling this. Being the concerned citizen that you portray yourself to be, I would have expected more from you David. It’s pretty easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. I normally find your blog to be somewhat amusing…not this time. If you want to cast stones,then be man enough to step up with some solutions. The overwhelming sentiment from citizens who did contact council was to not cut city services. This cannot happen if we cut employee positions. We still have a city to run and that costs money.
Alderman Wheeler,
First, thank you for reading BJP. A couple of observations from your comment.
As far as I know, no one has ever presented the cost of changing from CLEMC to La Porte EMS in public. I do recall that at one meeting, Mayor Webber waved a piece of paper saying he had the information. But it was not made public to the best of my recollection. If the cost differential is really $100,000, then I would still make the change. The number one duty of an elected official is public safety. Allowing citizens to die because I wanted to save money, knowing full well that a better option exists, even at a higher cost, is not an option for me. The presentation by CLEMC showing where their equipment is located and how difficult it is to respond to Shoreacres made it clear that they are not the best option. But there are other options – CLEMC just lost a major contract with one of the regional hospitals to a company named Acadian Ambulance Service, the largest such provider in the U.S. Perhaps the council could inquire about their services.
I have made recommendations. Return the UF transfer to the $35k average to see a truer picture. Raise fees if necessary to balance the UF budget. Cut personnel. On that last one, all I can do as a citizen is present the big picture. You have detailed information that is not available to the public. I’ve never even seen an org chart and don’t know how many people are actually on the payroll. Before you chide me for not making specific recommendations, I would ask that you at least consider that.
As a taxpayer/voter, I hoped that council would balance the budget in one cycle because that offers the city the best chance of survival and for it to become the ‘city of choice’ that I’ve heard so many times lately at council meetings. As a political observer, I knew it wouldn’t happen. That is why I saluted your efforts above. You didn’t get to half of the deficit but you came closer than I thought you would. As I said, kudos for that.
Finally, I’m glad that you find this amusing. I hope that each reader takes something away from what I write.
David
David,
I agree with most of what you wrote!
Starting with where I would disagree with you, is raising our prices for the UF. The exception might be the cost for garbage collection, but certainly not water or sewer. In this budget, refuse collection is projected to lose $28,187.50. Each homeowner’s monthly cost is $13.35 or $160.20 per year. Total revenues is projected at $90,262.50 and expenses being $118,450. The revenue projections divided by the yearly cost is about 564 homes. In order to cover that loss with increased charges, citizens would need to be charged an addition $50 per year for refuse collection. That would be a 31.2{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} increase in costs to the citizens just for refuse. When was the last time the city put out an RFP for refuse collection? Maybe there is a cheaper choice that provides the same or better service. This has to be somebody’s job!
As far as raising our water and sewer rates, NO, I disagree. Our water rates are a standard $14.50 per month based on, I believe, up to 3000 gallons, sewer rates are $17.50, which should be based on water usage. Neither, our website, or utility bill gives that exact information. Currently, we are somewhat comparable to other cities in the area on that expense. The City of Morgan’s Point charges $11.70 for the first 2000 gallons of water, and then $4.50 per 1000 gallons after that. Sewer is $10.50 for the first 5000 gallons, and then $2 per 1000 gallons after that. It is comparable, but the City of Morgan’s point seems to encourage water conservation more that we do. If a homeowner were to use 3000 gallons in a month, Shoreacres would charge $30.85 for that month. Morgan’s Point would charge $26.70 for the same service. While it is comparable, Shoreacres charges 15.5{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} more on 3000 gallons of usage.
Given that our property tax rate is .84 per $100, the last thing the city needs to do is make our utilities even more expensive. That would probably cause our property values to decrease even further than they have. That spiral is what will cause the city to go bankrupt.
The real problem with our public works is our personnel costs, which is out of control. In 2008, the budget for personnel was $217,376, which combines parks, sewer, water, and public utility. In this year’s budget, it is $344,694, a whopping 58.57{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} increase over 2008. 2010’s budget was $224,584. That makes this year’s budget for PU personnel costs a 53.48{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} increase over 2010. It is not hard to figure out the headcount budgeted for each of those years, if you use the health insurance numbers. In 2008 and 2010, there were 4 full time employees in those departments. It is now 6 full time employees, a coincidental 50{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} increase from 2008 and 2010. That explains the bloated growth in those departments combined.
Who has really noticed an increase in services from 2008 or 2010 to today? I have a hard time believing that cutting those departments’ personnel budget by that increase of 50{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} will cause the city to cut back on services. That is something city council needs to quantify and justify to the taxpayers. They also need to answer why the budget has a full time parks maintenance person who doesn’t even mow our city lawns. The budget has $28K for a contractor to mow our lawns.
Yes, the city needs to layoff a few employees to fix this fiscal deficit spending problem that we have. This problem was caused by poor management and it is their fault that we have this problem. This council, having inherited this problem, now has the opportunity to fix the problem. Allowing the problem to fester for another year, until the next election, is not an answer and would be a sign of a bigger and continuing problem of poor management.
Ron, thanks for the comment. I love that you and Gerry V are digging into details. Excellent work.
Just to be clear, I’m not necessarily advocating a rate hike. What I’m trying to say is that this fund must be balanced. Council has made it clear that they are not going to cut personnel. I don’t see a way to balance the fund without cutting personnel. Going back to the $35k admin transfer will help to the tune of about $100k. After that, council needs to buck up and raise the rate if they truly think that the voters want it done that way. We can’t keep subsidizing what is intended to be a break-even service.
Just my two cents on that. Keep digging, perhaps council will try again.