Fuzzy math fuzzy numbers and a fuzzy presentation
(Budget work shop number 2)
Columbia County, FL (posted
August 5,
2009)
By Stew Lilker
Columbia County Manager, Dale Williams, goes over one of
his slides during budget workshop number two. Throughout
the meeting the County Commissioners looked like deer
staring into the headlights of an on coming truck. The
fuzzy math and numbers were compounded by the fuzzy the
presentation.
Columbia County’s Budget Workshop number two,
presented on July 30, 2009, looked like the same tired
process that has gone on in Columbia County for years.
In the past few years, at the urging of your reporter,
the County has supplied a little more information. It is
highly inadequate in determining the funding and
spending requirements of the County.
The outside auditor continues to prepare budget
documents
Surrounded by a sea of empty chairs, Long time internal
auditor, Judy Lewis, looks over her notes during the
budget workshop.
Once again, the County Manager (“CM”), Dale Williams,
and his financial right hand, internal auditor Judy
Lewis, are relying on the offices of the outside auditor
to prepare many of the relevant budget documents. In the
days after Enron and the nations recent financial
meltdown one might think this procedure would have
stopped. In Columbia County it hasn’t.
For years your reporter, who is also a property owner
and resident of the County, has asked that at budget
time real numbers, “estimated actual” amounts, be
presented along with the proposed budget numbers, so
that folks would know how much money they are really
spending and how much has been spent. The County
continues to hide these numbers from the public and CM
Williams also seems to have been keeping them from the
County Commission as well.
Where are the real numbers?
Toward the end of the workshop the Observer asked the
same question that he has been asking for years, “How
come we don’t have what we really spent while we are
planning this budget?”
County Manager Williams listens to the Observer's
Questions.
CM Williams answered, “Well we do. We do have it.”
The Observer asked, “Where is it? It’s not here.”
CM Williams responded, “Well, you don’t have it. But
I’ve got it. They (the Commissioners) don’t have it.”
None of the Commissioner’s asked where those real
numbers were, nor did they ask why neither they, nor the
public have ever seen them.
The Observer pointed out that for years the county
has maintained unfilled positions on the books and has
funded those positions.
Your reporter asked, “Do we know over time how many
positions have gone unfilled, but funded, and the
public’s just paying for people that will never exist?
My understanding is in the Library at least three of
those positions have been unfilled for years and yet we
are basing our budget scenarios on ghost positions. How
much money over the last five years have you put in
unfilled positions that never got filled? Does anybody
know?”
CM Williams answered, “Without me analyzing personal
services I couldn’t tell you.”
On the minds of the County workers, as it is on
workers all over the nation, is what is going to happen
to their jobs, benefits, security and salaries.
The County Manager began discussing the worker’s cost
of living raise by telling the Board, “What most of you
have come in and discussed with me is the issue with
removing the cost of living raise from last year.”
Commissioner DuPree - Just not up to speed.
District III Commissioner, Jody DuPree, was again not up
to speed as he tried to figure out the in's and out's of
the Columbia County budget and process.
Commissioner DuPree, once again reflected his failure
to get up to speed on the issues or do his homework. “I
guess the question I got is that if you take the budget
and what it took to get to that point, how much of
gettin to that point did the Board of County
Commissioners contribute to gettin there and how much
did everybody else contribute?”
CM Williams explained that when the Board rescinded
the raise in their
first
budget workshop, they rescinded it for everybody.
CM Williams told Commissioner DuPree, “Board
departments on the average have a considerably lower
wage than do the Constitutional.” (The Constitutional
Officers are the Sheriff; Property Appraiser; Clerk of
the Courts and the Tax Collector).
Commissioner DuPree’s remarks reflected not only the
fuzziness of the workshop, but the entire conversation
regarding the raise for the county workers.
Mr. DuPree said, “I wasn’t so much directing towards
the raise issue, you know that’s what the dollars was,
but in order – to all the other cuts that goes on that
allows you to even do this, to do “G” (Provide
non-recurring bonus to employees from non-recurring
revenue source $2,153 per employee) it took other cuts
to get there... Who ponied-up to make all that happen?
So who all had dogs in the fight? Am I makin sense?”
CM Manager Williams responded to Commissioner DuPree,
“I’m not going to be able to answer your question the
way I know you’re asking it.”
Commissioner Weaver was on the mark when he told the
Board, “Keep in mind that you are going to get ample
opportunity at a second bite of the apple next year.”
The Board is expecting at least another two million
dollars in revenue cuts in the 2010-2011 budget year. If
they don’t begin planning ahead now, a lot more will be
in jeopardy than this year’s county employee raise,
which in some fashion, seems safe for now.
