Councilman Mitch Ruth Comments on Monroe Budget Crisis
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Mitch Ruth just posted the following on an older string about the budget crisis in Monroe and the Council’s emergency budget meeting on Saturday:
Until the audio is out, here’s my take on the short of it;
The bad news; The projected shortfall is just shy of $1.2 million.
The good news; Council has determined by vote that in November, it will only ask voters to approve the GO Bonds for specific line item transportation improvement projects.
Not decided by formal vote, but essentially resolved by what I see as council consensus;
What will not happen;
No property tax increases.
No reduction in services to the public.
No defunding of the YMCA services to city residents.
No cutting road overlay projects.
No cuts in sidewalks.
No spending of the 5% checking reserves.
No “tapping” (taxing) of the “banked reserves”
No request for voter levy lid lift
No new license tab tax/fee
The unpleasant, hard decisions; cuts are necessary in order to spend less than we take in.
What must happen;
* Eliminate one Senior Planner
* Both Human Resources and Risk Management to be eliminated; reestablished into one single position
* Deferr COLA raises for Dept Heads
* Deferring acquisition of tracking software (permit/project)
* Eliminate one Community Service Officer; reestablish as a “Code Enforcement” within Comm. Dev.
* Continued hiring freeze in all departments; exceptions granted only upon council majority vote
* Surplus of unused land to offset shortfall, pay-back rainy day fund, improve parks (lots of detail needed for reader to fully grasp, but it works and makes sense)
*Permanent earmarking of Red Light funds for roads/transportation projects & related police costs only
Preliminary estimates put the cost benefits of these changes into the $1.2 million + range.
2009 items for additional discussion;
*Evaluation of possible change to City Manager w/possible filling w/attorney to curb spiraling legal costs
*Detailed analysis of staffing levels of all departments; ensure commensurate with work loads/levels (additional staffing level adjustments may be forthcoming in the near future)
* Ensure that Dept of Corrections begins paying it’s fair share of various taxes. No more subsidizing of D.O.C. by city tax payers !
Questions/comments?
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Mitch,
How much of the legal costs are directly associated with North Kelsey? All of the expenses paid for Dave Ellenhorn’s fees are for his negotiations with First Western on North Kelsey. Most of this were discussions that should have been handled by our broker and the Mayor/Council, but were delegated at $140 an hour to an attorney.
We’ve also had more than $40,000 in the last 18 months alone in legal fees from a frivolous lawsuit filed by Meredith Mechling. In a similar vein, each time the Ethics Board meets, considers a hypothetical or a complaint, it costs thousands in legal fees because they have an attorney who writes up all their opinions, etc. The trouble with this is that the quality of the decisions we’ve gotten from the Ethics Board aren’t worth the money taxpayers are spending. They contradict themselves, they refuse to stick to the Ethics Code as a foundation for their decisions and they are jacking up our legal costs while doing such a poor job.
Shouldn’t get me started on the legal costs, I guess.
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
The reason I ask is because the high legal expenses might not be entirely solved by hiring in-house counsel. In some ways it will, but in others it won’t.
1) Legal costs will decline in one way because the Mayor is responsble for 90% or more of the legal costs because of what she requests the City Attorney (at an hourly rate) to do. North Kelsey and Attorney Ellenhorn (good guy, by the way) is a good example. Council rarely directed any expenditures with Ellenhorn. It was almost exclusvely the Mayor who racked up this bill.
2) Legal costs would not decline if a specialty was needed. An in-house attorney would cover most of our issues, as Attorney Olbrechts demonstrated, but for some issues you need a specialist. We used Jim Haney for some land-use matters. We used another attorney for certain personnel and labor negotiation issues. Much of this would remain the same, since an in-house attorney is a jack-of-all trades and would still need outside input.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a closer look at all the legal costs and categorize them so we know if we’re comparing apples or oranges.
Where is Tony Balk in all this? Seems to me like the Chair of the Budget Committee should be on top of all these issues, not just dealing with the fall-out once a crisis occurs.
He fought my efforts last year to be even more conservative in our budgeting, opting instead for a 1% trimming of the proposed budget. This meant the 2008 budget was still a dramatic increase over the previous year’s budget. We shouldn’t have increased at all, given the bleak economic forecast.
Those committees should be the watchdogs for City issues. The Budget Committee in particular should have a Chair who is willing to mix it up with the Mayor and demand more information and a greater degree of accountability.
Perhaps another Chairman might be in order if Tony doesn’t really want to come to blows with the Mayor? Sounds like you have some good ideas…why don’t you step into the role as Chairman?
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Mitch brought forward some great ideas on Saturday… not just ways to cut costs, but some creative ideas to increase revenue WITHOUT raising taxes. I am definitely in support of the ideas presented, as was a majority of Council.
My addition to the What Must Happen list was more amalgamation of staff. We have to be able to do more with less. It stinks to even have to talk about it. We’re in a world of hurt with this budget shortfall, and the voters deserve to have every option for cutting costs looked at, no matter which personalities are involved. Voters are cutting spending in their budgets at home. The City has to do the same thing.
I also was pleased with the outcome of Saturday’s Budget Retreat in that Council voted to send the GO bonds to the voters this Fall for our vital transportation projects, furthering the chances of uninterrupted work. The voters deserve to get their money’s worth.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Thanks, Kurt. Agreed. It’s easier if these cuts are made progressively and with foresight, rather than in emergency situations. But better late than never.
I lay the lion’s share of the blame on the Mayor, of course, and on the Chair of the Budget Committee. When I was Chair of the Transportation and Planning Committee I made it my job to be the most knowledgeable on what was currently happening the City on those issues. Tony Balk should have done the same. Also, he is the one who led the charge for the insufficient “compromise” that garnered the Mayor a majority on Council for her 2008 budget increases. That’s the kind of leadership we could have done without last fall. It’s what led to this crisis. But we have plenty of time to discuss that later. For now, focussing on getting us out of the mess is important. Glad you’re all in agreement on streamlining rather than jacking up for more money.
Brad Feilberg sent me the list of projects the Transportation Package will include. I haven’t had a chance to look them over yet but I will and will post them here.
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I still can’t believe the budget is in this bad of shape. How did she do it when she found out the first of June? She must have known this was going to happen if there’s a shortfall so soon in the year.
Thank you, Kurt Goering and Mitch Ruth, for standing up for us poor schmucks paying the bills.
June 24th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I feel I need to insert several thoughts here before we go too much further on this.
First, I do not agree that the city is in a “crisis”. We have challenges to address and some changes must be made. The economy is a challenge for all. But we are far from a crisis in my opinion. We are dealing with the shortfalls before the problems actually happen. That’s what projections are; predictions of the future. Our local economy is still “healthy”. We have the ability to adjust and meet the needs of the future without raising taxes.
Second, Tony Balk, like him or not, was the first to speak out on this at the meeting and didn’t let it rest until all the facts were brought out. In fact, if I remember correctly, Tony made the motion to have this budget meeting in the first place. It’s unfortunate that the facts we needed were delayed in coming to us. But we have them now and are taking action to resolve the problem before it actaully occurs.
Next, legal fees are higher than “I” think they should be. The specific legal issues/costs are many and varied. Part of this sadly seems to be the current cost of doing business in a society where people are more inclined to sue than talk and work things out. Part is because we as a city are virtually forced by our risk pool (insurance company) to do things thier way. Federal and state laws/mandates come down on a regular basis; and we must react with local changes. All of these require legal advice and often being drafted by legal counsel. This is just the tip of the cost iceberg.
I look forward to a serious examination of how we as a city can conduct the routine/expected business at lower legal cost. We will always have unexpected litigation that we can often do little to plan for or avoid. We will always need outside counsel. Yet, maybe a look at our government structure and/or having in house counsel can yield some valuable answers to cost savings.
The reality is that we must live within our means. We must carefully weigh essential services and desired levels of services against what we can reasonably afford to provide. We will continue to evaluate how we can do better and more, with less.
Personally, I am rarely very concerned with blame, per se. Blame is easy to cast and typically a waste of time. So rather than waste time on “blame”, I prefer to spend my most valuable resource, time, in looking for solutions and alternatives to the issues at hand.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Mitch, no offense, but if you were not concerned with blame and looking for solutions and all that other mumbo jumbo you just said, then why would you stab Minnick in the back and endorse the do-nothing, know even less Margie Rodriguez last year?
I listen to the audio online and she is useless. Minnick always has useful ideas and knows city issues inside and out, a lot better than most on the Council. If you cared about the City you would have supported Minnick for re-election like the Herald and most of the people that know what they’re talking about did.
I think you just don’t like blame when it falls on your friends, and Minnick fell off that friend list.
That’s what I think.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Comment deleted by Chad because it’s author engaged in name-calling…a right reserved for Chad only
June 25th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
This is what’s so wonderful about our way of life in this great country. Being unfettered by fact, we are all free to be arm chair quarter backs despite never having stepped onto the field or played the game, and anonymously pass judgment upon those that do, without fear of retaliation or reprisal.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
SkyRiv, I’m deleting your comment. I’m the only person around here who gets to call people names, ’cause it’s my blog.
Opinions are fine, even conjecture and accountability. Let’s leave the name-calling to the Mayor and her pals.
Sorry, Mitch. I used to catch these before they were published, but I changed the blog to allow comments to automatically post once the user has posted at least once.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I don’t want this string to turn into something else here. The solutions proposed are absolutely what needs to happen.
I disagree with Mitch’s comments on assigning blame, however, and intend to write a separate post addressing them. I don’t disagree with the sentiments, nor the actual statements…I just disagree with definitions. In other words, what might be considered “assigning blame and looking for a scapegoat” to one, may be “holding officials accountable” to another.
I think it’s important to understand the difference and how it applies to our current “budget emergency”, since we don’t want to call it a crisis.
But the important thing to note here is that our City Council is doing the right thing to stand up to the Mayor and her constant drumbeat for higher taxes. That is very, very good news to our overtaxed ears!
Thank you!!!!
June 25th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I think that the old Reagan addage that “the solutions are simple, but they are also hard” is appropriate. When mistakes are made and misjudgments too, it is very difficult to admit those mistakes and make the changes which are simultaneously painful and embarrassing.
Despite the tendency of most government officials to think that the laws of nature and gravity (and finance) do not apply to government, the fact is that more money must come in than goes out, and one time money cannot be relied upon to pay for long term and on-going expenses.
The solutions are simple, but they are hard and painful to follow through on. Not unlike an individual digging themselves out of a financial hole. It is not fun, and many of the things you want must take second place to the things you need.
The only question is whether the elected officials in Monroe have the personal strength and mental toughness to do what must be done - even despite the howling that will naturally occur.
Just one citizens perspective here, but one that I think is sound.
Nic