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| Image: The city released its
2009-2010 proposed budget yesterday. Still doesn't look very good. The 323 page proposed annual budget is available at the city web site (see it in all its glory here). As an interesting side note our disc golf referendum would have had to attach a plan as large as the proposed budget to each referendum petition sheet, according to some legal eagles downtown. Although I haven't had time to look over the document, I did scroll through it until I found the projected budget fund balances (a portion of this table is above). The entire table can be seen on page 61 of the pdf linked above. The 10 year deficit has dropped from $50-$60 million to $23,000,000 which is a step in the right direction, but only half way to AC/DC's Back In Black. I noticed several things that were a bit quirky with this chart. The first was that the emergency reserves the city has ($6,552,693) stays exactly the same over the next 10 years. That's obviously not real. For example, the new state budget problems might allow the state to take from the city $1.2 million in the coming few years. That temporary loan to CA would likely be covered by our emergency funds. But I assume for extended planning purposes this number was left stagnant. The second thing is that throughout the 10 year budget there are transfers into the General Fund in the amount of ~$4,000,000 annually. I assume some portion of this is continued use of gas taxes to cover General Fund deficits. If that's the case it's not a good idea. Third, the plan assumes something in the area of 3-4% revenue growth from 2011 on. The percentage of revenue growth is in the first light blue row shown above. When you contrast the 3-4% growth percentage in later years of the plan with the actual growth in current years (-1.3% for 08-09 and -6.54% projected for 09-10) you see where there could be a problem. Looking into the past you can see a year-to-year growth of +9% in 06-07. So it's really hard to know if 3-4% growth is a conservative estimate or not. The second light blue row contains the annual percentage growth in expenses. These also fluctuate significantly over a period of 3 years which makes you wonder how realistic the projected percentages can be. If we had a history of underestimating revenue and overestimating expenses then I'd say we're all good. However, I think the opposite is closer to true. Looking at this proposed budget (recognizing I haven't looked through the entire document) I think the city has reached the half-way to "balanced" point. This takes me back to Councilor Mary Flynn patting herself on the back at a recent council meeting for solving the budget problem. Bankruptcy caused by a $3,000,000 annual deficit is not really a whole lot better than bankruptcy caused by a $6,000,000 annual deficit. It was probably a little early for the high fives. |
Bad To The Loan
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Lon
About Me: Fasten your seatbelts for an exhilarating trip through Chico's public policy; I guarantee it's marginally better than public access TV.
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The new Moveable Type blog format is a train wreck. Even the comments link is hidden halfway under the header ont he top story.
Note to Ryan Olson and the ER for the gadzillionth time: WORDPRESS
Thank god I left the ER's Moveable Type blog 2 years ago, it was almost as painful as attending city meetings.
Yeah, but now it's got ads!
Lon
you getting any revenue for those ads, or are you a "slave to the man"?
At a meeting once, my 13 year old observed that these people spend way too much time making charts and "power point presentations." We were at a budget meeting where Scott got up with a handful of colored markers and tried to "illustrate" the situation on a big tablet. Remember, he pointedly refused to use the red pen.
My son kept asking, "how much did those markers cost? Why does he need those markers and that big tablet? Look how he just scribbles on a page and then goes to the next one..."
Simple but true. How much time do they spend on these charts, which, as you point out and I've found many times, are hard to read and oftentimes just don't make sense? It's all part of the smoke and mirrors, and it's what they do to look busy all day.
Now, this lady at the county, Laura Brunson, the human resources director, is offering to take a PAY CUT! Give her a cigar. Nevermind she makes over $100,000, and after the pay cut she'll still be making over $100,000 - the point is, if all our public workers making over $100,000 followed her lead, and then stuck to reasonable one percent pay raises, we wouldn't have to worry about cutting all our services.
I'm a slave to the man. But not a very good slave, I doubt they find me very profitable. I'm more like a younger brother that never really developed any marketable skills and eats a bunch of food that I never pay for. In fact I'm a tick on the ER's news scalp.
Lon
Juanita,
The good thing about Scott doing the dog-and-pony show, is that he's free to the taxpayer. I don't know if I was at that meeting or at a similar one (I recall a finance committee meeting), but I remember thinking "hey this is a lot like one of those charettes, except we don't have to pay for it when a councilor does it".
Charts are good... if they provide information in a recognizable and concentrated manner. But, I'm not sure how many people in Chico can decipher the chart I referenced above. And charts/tables can be gamed to provide a specific picture that is not accurate. I always look for things like static numbers. They indicate a lack of focus on real financial changes. The emergency fund balance stood out immediately. Another number I looked at was the expense and revenue percentage increases. Had they been the same across the board I would have known that little effort went in to actually projecting them, and they would not be trustworthy.
As it stands I need to look into the document to see where those numbers come from to see if they are an aggregate where a large percentage of the percentage is a fixed estimate.
Of course in the end these are just projected estimates. We should expect that 3 years are the only years that have any real accuracy.
With the chart I referenced I was able to see the end-of-year projected balance without reading a 323 page report. That's pretty good. The downside is that by not looking through the report I'm probably missing some very real and important issues that should be highlighted for the public.
Lon
Scott's time costs $103,000 a year - that's his salary over in Glenn County, which he gets paid even when he is standing in a meeting in Chico at 9 am. I have more than one friend over there who says people are starting to get sick of that.
You like charts, I'm just the opposite, I like reports. They say men respond better to visual stuff and women like more explanations. While I hate pressing stereotypes, that one is pretty true. Frankly, I think it's a lot easier to hide stuff, or just plain leave it out, in a chart. And charts need somebody to stand there and explain them. It's just busy work, fluff, and they get paid like a $100/hour to do it. It's called "staff time."
Scott's line through all this has been, "look, if you people want stuff, you have to pay more taxes." That's where he was going with the artwork. It's too easy to doodle people when you should be giving them hard facts.
And you know, every dog and pony show is followed onto stage by a snake oil salesman. He'll give a flowery speech, confuse the audience with big words, frighten them with shadowy scenarios and...ka-CHING! "Look at this chart for gawdsake! We need to spend $30,000 on a study!"
"As it stands I need to look into the document to see where those numbers come from to see if they are an aggregate where a large percentage of the percentage is a fixed estimate."
See, now they got you doing it. We're going to have to do an intervention.
Should I have said Scott doing a presentation is free to the Chico taxpayer?
Anytime a councilor can get up and express an understanding of the content of the meeting it's a good thing. Too often consultants come in, and are summarily ignored after cashing their checks. I'd rather see our elected leaders actually lead, even if I sometimes think it's in the wrong direction.
I may like value charts because I'm a dude. Or it may be my last 15 years working as an engineer (I get a lot of information from charts and tables).
Let me clarify my statement "As it stands I need to look into the document to see where those numbers come from to see if they are an aggregate where a large percentage of the percentage is a fixed estimate."
If the revenue growth percentage was a combination of something like...
2010
+2.5 percent growth from good times
-0.03 percent growth from state estimated growth charts
2011
+2.5 percent growth from good times
+0.72 percent growth from state estimated growth charts
I would say "hey, a large percentage of expected revenue growth is from a fixed number called "good times", whereas the remainder seems to be a more variable estimate." This would lead me to question the accuracy of the percentage increase in revenue growth estimates.
The chart doesn't tell you where those numbers come from. Of course a report doesn't always tell you where numbers come from either. I think you have to assume that the finance department is giving a best estimate with the charts and reports they produce.
Lon