Columnist Lauren Ritchie from the Orlando Sentinel is at it again - she has great tenacity in using public record requests to unearth some interesting ideas... meanwhile, the County Commissioner Chair, and two staffers went to Washington, DC to ask for funds to build two more buildings - one that would be used for the emergency task force but would sit empty for most of the year, and another as a transit center for the County bus service.
I personally watch the quality of internal management systems more than individual spending issues like maintenance of plants. If you have a good management reporting system, you can easily see the effects and costs of a project, building, or program, and make informed decisions if some cuts are needed. Reliance on staff recommendations would be reduced.
One of the problems I see, partly described in Ritchie's column, is that government reports spending on a line item budget basis, and not a program cost basis. Most corporations will have the line item consolidated financial statements to satisfy CPA's and investors, but they also have completely separate cost accounting, or metric tracking showing costs by project, location, or program (i.e. if you build a new plant, you include all the maintenance, staffing, etc. in the same report to show the total cost of the project).
The Need for Project or Program Cost and Performance Reports
BUT, in the issue of getting building funds from DC (capital expenditures), or in the issue in Ritchie's column describing how many costs for the local TV channel program were split among many line items, local governments need to be smacked on the side of the head, and required to always provide total program costs when proposing, or approving, or reporting the results of a program. Stop following outmoded CPA, CAFR and fund accounting systems and implement unit or project based performance accounting reports. That would make it much easier for elected officials to see what could be cut from programs. FIRE the staff leaders if they continue to hide program details in undecipherable line item budget reporting systems.
Excessive Training Costs for Staff
I agree with Ritchie's analysis of the School District staffer who traveled for 8 weeks of training to learn about grant regulations. Why did they hire someone who didn't know the regs already, and couldn't subscribe to online or printed updates to keep updated? One possible reason is that the School District tends NOT to hire subject matter experts with prior experience in a field, but instead promotes or moves teachers or Principals into administrative or management positions without any background in the field they now cover. Even Scott Strong, Board Member, has commented that he doesn't agree with moving a sports coach to a management position over non-instructional areas. In contrast, that is one of the biggest strengths I have seen for the County government - they require subject matter knowledge and experience in the management positions they recruit for. AND, they pay enough and get people to move here. I saw several of them when I attended the County's Citizen's Academy and they clearly knew their management fields. Can the School District say the same for all the managers over non-instructional fields?
vj
Lessons Learned Summary:
1. Make all local government agencies prepare separate monthly, quarterly and annual program or project reporting statements, rather than just rely on a hidden line item budget where program costs are spread among different line items. Publish them on the website within 20 days of the end of the reporting period.
2. Require that all capital projects and spending programs be proposed, approved, and tracked on a full project reporting basis. Don't allow staff to ask approval for a building or other asset (i.e. a Fire Station) and not include the full operating and staffing costs. For instance, if the County gets funding for the $7-million emergency management center (i.e. to manage a disaster like a Tornado), where is the estimate of the staffing and operating costs, and where is the funding for THAT in the budget?
3. Mandate that hiring for all management and knowledge based staff positions require the recruiting of people experienced and certified in the actual field, and do not move non-skilled people into those areas (such as teachers).
vj
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orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-lritchie0208may02,0,4116371.column
OrlandoSentinel.com
COMMENTARY Lakefront
Zap the travel, kill the plants, pull plug on TV
Lauren Ritchie
COMMENTARY
May 2, 2008
The last two columns have looked at spending by local elected officials and examined how it could be trimmed. Let's keep going, looking at expenses that range from tiny to real money.
This suggestion ought to be self-evident: Stop paying for unnecessary and self-serving stuff, regardless of the amount. Don't mutter, "Yeah, we should." Do it.
Start with government fleets and travel.
The Lake County School District owns 236 vehicles, excluding buses, and two dozen big, gas-guzzling pickups are assigned to transportation-department mechanics for "service calls." This leads a reader to envision a platoon of road rangers roaming the county, repairing every broken bus by the side of the highway. Clearly, however, most are fixed at district garages, so why are all these trucks needed?
The district's terse explanation for sedans is "in-county travel and out-of-county conferences." Translation: perk. Sell every one, and let employees bill the district for mileage. The private sector learned long ago that it's far cheaper to pay by the mile than to own a fleet of vehicles.
Too much travel?
Eliminating travel is easy, and there's plenty to target in the Lake County schools budget.
Take, for example, the travel of one employee, Trish Smith, an administrator who handles federal funds designated to help poverty-stricken students, along with other grants. She was in conferences and training seminars for nearly 80 days after she was hired in February 2006, School Board member Cindy Barrow reported in a memo. Zowie. Can that be correct? Asked whether the figure was accurate, Smith stated in an e-mail that she didn't have exact numbers but estimated that the amount of training was "about right" to perform her job, which calls for extensive knowledge of grant regulations. In a separate written memo to board members, Smith said: "We can stop attending these trainings immediately, but it will not be without risk of not understanding what regulations apply to us."
This is puzzling. If Smith's grasp of the rules is so tenuous that she needs nearly eight weeks of "training" each year in places such as Las Vegas, why was she hired?
Smith is not alone in jetting around the country. The district expects to spend about $415,000 on travel this year. This is simple: Stay home. Use the Internet and the phone. That amount would pay for teacher aides for 40 classrooms. Which does the most to raise student performance -- traveling administrators or direct help to kids?
Start with bonuses
Leesburg also is spending money unnecessarily.
For example, it is laying out about $30,000 to send 25 employees to two years of classes for certification as public managers. At the end of the first four classes, the students get a $1,000 bonus. Each receives another $2,000 at graduation. Total: $105,000. While it's awfully sporting of the city to train future managers for every podunk town in Central Florida, it's hardly vital to the continued operation of Leesburg.
Then there is the nearly $34,000 commissioners voted Monday night to spend installing a coffee shop in the city library. What the heck. They had earlier shelled out close to $30,000 more for furniture and equipment to provide this very critical service. The city is to get 5 percent of the gross sales from the Apopka vendor who is contracted to do the brewing.
Compare that to the deal Lake County government cut with the same vendor. The county provided the space in its new south Lake library, but the vendor paid for the furniture and equipment. And what does the county get? Five percent, same as Leesburg, only without the costly taxpayer investment.
Proceed to tropical plants
But Lake County's got its own financial foibles. One little tidbit: Taxpayers have a contract for $5,500 a year with a company to rent and care for tropical plants placed around county offices.
Can times really be as tight as governments claim if they can afford the types of expenses described above while simultaneously talking about laying off police and firefighters?
Leesburg City Manager Jay Evans stated in an e-mail that the city's certified public-manager course is "on the chopping block" but is "peanuts" compared to the total of $2.5 million that must be cut.
"Raises will be gone. Take-home vehicles (and car allowances) will be reduced if not eliminated (that includes mine). Educational reimbursement (tuition assistance) will be gone (we can't send some folks to college while laying others off). The pension plan and health insurance plans will likely see big changes. Heck, even the $125 Christmas bonus is likely gone.
"Even after all of the above, we won't be near $2.5 million. Math is math."
Evans' preliminary estimate is that those cuts will save roughly $1.1 million; $400,000 more likely can be trimmed from operations, he said. That leaves $1 million to go.
To help Evans and his commissioners claw more pennies out of that horrendously tight budget, here's another suggestion: Kill the city-run, self-serving television channel. Its only value is free cable exposure for commissioners who want to be re-elected -- at the expense of taxpayers.
Savings: $144,000.
Amusing but unnecessary
In its defense, some shows can be amusing, such as the one hosted by Commissioner David Knowles and former Mayor Bob Lovell called "Just the Facts." Listening to Knowles bemoan the lack of "morals" in a black Leesburg neighborhood and Lovell "joke" about being unable to tell the difference between terrorist Osama bin Laden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is entertainment at its finest.
But Leesburg has ample outlets to reach its residents. It maintains a comprehensive Web site and publishes a newsletter every other month that is mailed with utility bills. Getting in front of a camera and carrying on with your friends is too easy. If Knowles and Lovell had to put their unsubstantiated claims, inaccurate information and improper remarks in writing, they could more easily be held accountable.
Worst of all, the average person can't even learn that the city operates a public-access channel or determine what it spends on production by examining the budget.
The nearly $40,000 for a "broadcast technician" is a single line in the technology budget. The producer's salary of $30,000 is wrapped into a larger expenditure labeled "professional services" in the same section. Some $52,200 for fiber connections is tucked into a utilities budget, $19,000 for video equipment hides in capital improvements, $3,000 is called "operating supplies," and another $1,000 lurks in "publications and memberships."
Prioritize, prioritize
I could write all day, but the astute reader is getting the picture. Governments cannot legitimately whine until they strip all but critical spending for absolutely necessary government services from their budgets.
Perhaps elected officials could meet at the Leesburg library, sip $4 cups of exotic coffee and have a debate about cutting budgets -- to be broadcast live.
Lauren Ritchie can be reached at [email protected] or 352-742-5918.
Copyright © 2008, Orlando Sentinel
