This is the third in a series of Lake County (FL) Budget workshops, but unless they recently changed, the Board will NOT accept public input, unlike the School District Board which allows public input on any workshop agenda item.
You can find the schedule of meetings here:
http://www.lakecountyfl.gov/departments/fiscal_and_administrative_services/budget/fiscal_year_2011.aspx
You can also visit the meetings and agenda page and watch the meeting online, or view them later from THIS page.I call this a Gobbledegook session because...
the County is still using ancient Fund accounting based worksheets to "explain" by fund (aka the funding source) where revenues come from, and then list expenses taken only from that fund. The problem is that no one understands this 50 year old format because the revenues and related expenses are not shown in logical groupings by projects or responsibility areas like business does.
The County DOES have a separate set of "Operating Budgets" in the printed budget, and this is what the Board should be looking at, so they can examine total actual and budgeted costs and revenues by operating unit (like Public Works) AS well as examining the quality of the Department "Workload Measurements" AND how well the Department Director did in controlling the expenditures and meeting the "Workload Measurements". A key question to ask, besides allocating budget dollars, is if the manager has an acceptable plan to IMPROVE the expense ratios of the unit.
Another problem with the "workload measurements" in the printed budget is that they are all static numbers, such as 300 phone calls answered, or 144 home closings or 700 newsletters published, but how did the cost ratio of units per dollar improve, AND how were measurable goals for activities achieved.
Business always tracks a ratio of resources (like manhours, components or dollar cost) per production unit, and Government should be doing the same.
For instance, just publishing 700 newsletters is not a valid measurement if they have no specific measurable goals for the newsletter that are tracked. Is there a trend of reduced costs to "Close" homes (for housing services) over the last five years. If not, why not? Additionally, why publish a newsletter instead of using the internet?
The first thing to REMEMBER is that the worksheets for this workshop are ONLY for the General Fund, thus they do not reflect total Lake County local government revenues (and their related costs) from Federal & State grants, special district tax funds, etc. You would think you could get a statement that matches employee count to total revenues (from all sources) and expenses for each department, but they run separate schedules that cannot be reconciled.
For instance, in the worksheets being presented to the Board, you cannot get a clear picture of total costs to run a department like the Clerk of the Court, because they spread out costs in separate worksheet sections with expenses from other departments in "General Government", "Court Related expenditures", "constitutional officers" and probably other worksheet sections. For instance, there are at least four sections where Public Works expenses are listed, but there are no separate versions that show all those expenses by Public Works so you can see the total cost for the department as a "Responsibility Area" Directed by a specific individual.
This method is ludicrous compared to common business practices.
Additionally, unlike business, staff is not expected to prepare written narratives to explain the worksheets, so all explanations are verbal. That makes it much harder for the public or anyone to understand, since the staff presentation will focus mostly on the Board, and not provide clear explanations for any other viewers. There also is no written narrative to later examine.
Another factor is the lack of allocation of overheads to departments. So, you have a GIANT expense category called "General Government" for $34-million and it is not allocated as part of the individual department expense sections, so you don't know the total cost for departments like Public Works because even its own department budget section does not show the actual allocation of overhead expenses to see the true cost of the department.
So far, unlike the School District Board, this County Board does not seem to be planning to review details in departments, but probably listen to staff recommendations and whittle them down or modify them. Thus it is possible many department budgets will escape detailed review by the Board or transparency for the public.
There is no revenue forecast in this package of documents for the current or the future budget year, thus you cannot easily tell what the new target for next year's spending should be.
Additionally, the worksheets given to the Board on Tuesday show 10 years of actual spending history, which is good, but they do not show a forecast of the current fiscal year spending, only the data for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2009. Businesses will always have month and year to date spending data available for decisions like this, but the County does not.
Finally, the worksheets only show actual dollars, and no percentages so readers can easily determine which cost categories are receiving the most funds. Thus when you look at "Total General Government" expenses of $34.9-million for fiscal year 2008-09, you do not know how much that is as a percent of total spending without calculating it yourself.
Some of the the above issues may have been covered in the two earlier budget meetings, which I will review in the future and monitor these issues. Without the above information, the Board cannot accurately make budget decisions except by emotion and blindly accepting staff recommendations. However, there was no summary of the budget process for this workshop, or cover letter, which could have alleviated these concerns by addressing them.
We will see...
vj
