2011 Budget Math: Does It Add Up?

There was a surprisingly lively discussion before Council voted 6-1 to adopt Mayor Coleman’s 2011 city budget at the March 22nd council meeting.

The vote came in the nick of time. By law, Council had until March 31st to approve the budget. The lone "no" vote was Council President Scott Mills. He objected because, in his view, the budget short-changed the city's infrastructure and ignored more pressing safety needs.

Frankly, I was quite pleased to hear the debate. It showed that Council was giving the budget the kind of thoughtful consideration that it deserves.
Although at least one member of Council’s Legislative & Finance Committee(L&F) was privately upset that questions were raised about the budget right before the vote---after all, L&F had been diligent in its review process--- the reality is that Finance Director Tony Ianiro didn't give a draft budget to L&F until late February, and the rest of Council didn’t get a good look at it until Ianiro formally presented the budget to Council at the March 15th Committee of the Whole meeting.
Bottom line, the administration made sure that Council had little time to discuss ---and possibly challenge---the mayor’s budget decisions.

Keeping in mind that budget discussions can get pretty dull, I put together some
 2011 Budget Math
 for your viewing pleasure. Ready? Here goes....

• $5,670,447   2006 income tax revenue before Mayor Coleman’s income tax increase
• $8,435,482   2007 city income tax revenue after Mayor Coleman’s tax increase
• $8,925,000    2011 projected city income tax revenue   

                      -------------------------

• $718,266   2006 property tax revenue put into general fund (101 fund)
• $769,760   2007 property tax revenue put into general fund
• $723,792   2011 projected property tax revenue for general fund
• $326,485     2006 property tax revenue put into Park & Recreation fund (202 fund)
• $349,891     2007 property tax revenue put into P&R fund
• $332,500     2011 projected P&R fund property tax revenue 
  
                     ---------------------------
• $15, 855,272.88 (2011 total projected city revenue) vs. $16,577,555.70 (2011 total projected city expenses)
  = $ -72,2282.82 (2011 projected overall city deficit spending)
• $629,850 (2011 Park & Recreation projected revenue) vs. $ 651,689 (2011 P & R projected expenses)
  =  $-21,839 (2011 P&R projected deficit spending )
                 -------------------------------
• 5.8% —increase in projected 2011 general fund spending over 2010 actual general fund spending
• 2.1% ---projected inflation rate for 2011  http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

                        --------------------------------

• $252,000—amount budgeted for 2011 street crack sealing and concrete repairs
• $0—amount budgeted for 2011 resurfacing of city streets
                 ----------------------------------
• $25,000—amount budgeted to address city drainage issues
• $50,000--amount budgeted to do flood plain study
• $0—amount budgeted for needed replacement of Highland Road water main
                -----------------------------------
• $220,000—total amount budgeted to renovate/replace Old Pool House in park for 8 week summer day camp program (including electrical and workshop relocations)
• $0---amount budgeted to address primary safety issue in park (park entrance) and park roads

What do you think? Do these numbers add up to good fiscal leadership? I'll let you decide for yourself....

Fiscal Responsibility—Yes or No?

It’s budget time in the city, but first….



Grin of the Week or Saying One Thing In Public and Doing The Opposite In Private
I laughed out loud reading the most recent edition of Highland Highlights, which arrived in my mailbox this week.
What made me laugh? Mayor Scott Coleman’s letter to residents. After revealing his hand-selected picks for the Charter Review Commission (CRC) and discussing their mission, the mayor writes:

"The meetings are open to the public and I encourage residents to attend to listen to the discussion and possibly add any ideas they may have."
Yeah, right.
Well, maybe he just forgot that you have to unlock the doors, if you really want the public to attend---right Mr. Mayor?

Campaigning versus Fiscal Responsibility

Mayor Scott Coleman presented his 2011 budget to Council’s Legislative & Finance Committee (L&F) a couple of weeks ago. A slightly tweaked budget will be presented for adoption at this Tuesday’s council meeting.


The mayor clearly drafted the budget with a view to his reelection campaign. Need proof? Some projects that normally would be general fund items (like street striping) have been moved to the 401 capital improvements fund---thereby avoiding what would otherwise be deficit spending in the general fund.

One thing I don’t expect the mayor to mention-- his projected 2011 general fund spending is up 5.3% over actual spending last year….
I doubt that Mayor Coleman will want to crow about that in his campaign literature.

The budget is quite important. By law, the mayor’s ability to spend money (and the finance director’s ability to write checks) is limited to the amounts appropriated in the budget. That’s really not as much of a failsafe as it sounds, however, because as Mayor Coleman has repeatedly pointed out, budget appropriations are subject to change. A budget is truly meaningful only if the mayor who created it is committed to sticking with it.

Bottom line, budgets are policy statements; they reflect the priorities of the person creating them. With that in mind, it is interesting to take note of a couple of items that Mayor Scott Coleman chose to include---and what he left out--- of the budget that he presented to L&F this year.


What’s Out.

• Despite all of the public interest in the city’s new green space, the mayor included $0 for renovating and/or developing that space into a community gateway and gathering place.
• Despite all the recent discussions about flood plains and flooding in the city, the mayor included $0 for drainage issues (usually $25,000 is included in the budget for drainage issues).
• Despite the beating our city roads took this winter, and despite the fact that several surrounding communities plan to spend $1+ million for road maintenance and repairs this year, Mayor Coleman included only $ 252,000 for “miscellaneous concrete repairs and crack sealing”—$0 has been appropriated for resurfacing city streets this year.
  

What’s In: The Scott E. Coleman Park Pavilion
Mayor Coleman’s budget includes $220,000 (taken from several different taxpayer-financed funds) to renovate/replace the Old Pool House (OPH) in the park.

The OPH is currently the site of a working service department workshop. It also provides power for Community Day and winter storage for recreation-related items. Replacing those usages is a necessary component of any OPH renovation/replacement project. The budget lists moving the electrical connection, but it doesn’t mention moving/replacing the workshop. Mayor Coleman said during last week’s Committee of the Whole meeting that the workshop replacement would come out of the $220,000 appropriation, but it could just as easily end up as an additional expense. That would make sense. After all, when the entire project was bid out last year, the acceptable bids came back in the $300,000 range.

What does Mayor Coleman’s proposed $220,000 expenditure say about his priorities? Think about this.
The park has only one entrance; as Councilwoman Cathy Murphy has pointed out, every single person coming to the park in a car uses that entrance. For years, Council and residents have acknowledged that the park entrance is too small and dangerous---especially if you have to turn left into the park from Wilson Mills

Things don’t get much better once you actually make it into the park. The entrance road and the auxiliary exit road to Woodside are in pretty rough shape.

So you’ve got a dangerous entrance and bad roads. Now add the specter of two Mayor Coleman-approved gas wells in the park. With gas wells comes the need to have a quick and effective evacuation route---just in case something goes wrong (like a gas line explosion, a tank battery rupture or the release of toxic sulfide or radiation into the air). Can you imagine hundreds of kids and their parents trying to flee the park at the same time? What a nightmare.

You’d think that a responsible leader with an extra $220,000 burning a hole in his pocket would make addressing safety issues in the park his top priority.
But not Mayor Scott Coleman. He and his appointed cronies on the Park & Recreation Commission apparently think that spending a quarter million dollars of taxpayer dough renovating/replacing the OPH---to use as rain shelter for an 8 week summer day camp program--is much more important.

Now that’s good fiscal leadership for you.

As I see it, if I really, really wanted to build a new backyard deck for summer barbeques, but my front porch was dilapidated and dangerous, there would be only one responsible decision (fiscal or otherwise) that I could make: I’d have to stop dreaming about ribs and burgers, bite the bullet and replace the porch.

Mayor Coleman is facing the same kind of choice with regard to the park. As his budget shows, however, he’s going in a different direction. Forget safety. He’s planning to trot out the charcoal instead.

History Lessons and the Charter Review Commission

FLASHBACK

Highland Heights. Early 1992
Mayor Virgina Swanson wants to appoint a new law director (Tim Paluf).
Council prefers Dale Feneli, who has served as the city’s law director since 1980.
Twice Swanson attempts to appoint Paluf; twice Council refuses to confirm that appointment.
Swanson is unwilling to budge. She wants Paluf, no ifs, ands or buts.
Council comes up with a unique solution to end the impasse. It adopts an ordinance declaring a vacancy in the law director position. It then fills that vacancy---with Feneli.
Swanson cries “foul” and the matter ends up in court. The case is entitled, “State ex rel. Paluf v. Feneli."

Highland Heights. November 1993.
An election is held while the Paluf v. Feneli lawsuit is working its way through the courts. Every sitting council member is defeated. On December 31, 1993, the law director’s term expires by operation of law.
Highland Heights., January 1994.
The newly elected Council approves Swanson’s appointment of Paluf as law director.
Columbus, April 1994
Although it doesn't finally decide the case (it sends it back to the appellate court for further review), the Ohio Supreme Court rejects Swanson’s and Paluf’s contention thatCouncil has only a limited power of approval over mayoral appointments. (Swanson and Paluf had argued that Council could reject the mayor’s choice on one ground only---that the law director candidate was not licensed to practice law in Ohio.) Interpreting the Highland Heights Charter, the Ohio Supreme Court notes that:

the appointment process appears to be a practical outworking of the doctrine of separation of powers, with the mayor appointing the law director subject to council confirmation.

Cleveland 1995.
The Ohio Court of Appeals, Eighth District, declares Paluf v. Feneli moot, bringing the litigation to an end.
Highland Heights, November 2000
Highland Heights voters approve amending the Charter to give the mayor a four year term of office, but reject a proposal to have council members serve staggered, four year terms. The main reason voters rejected expanding Council terms? One word: accountability. Voters believed that the best way to ensure that Council made decisions in keeping with residents’ wishes, priorities and desires was by keeping council members on a short leash.

 FLASHFORWARD
March 8, 2011. Highland Heights.
The Charter Review Commission (CRC) meets to review the city Charter.
Two of the CRC members present are: 1) John Nawarskas—one of the Council members who was voted out of office in November 1993; and 2) Linda Citraro---the daughter of former Mayor Virginia Swanson, whose clash with Council let to Nawarskas’s ouster.
Also in attendance: Law Director Tim Paluf.


Up for discussion is Charter § 5.05. Entitled, “Executive Power,” it reads in part:

The Mayor shall …appoint the Finance Director (and) shall appoint all other department heads, subject to the approval of a majority of the members of Council….In the event of a vacancy occurring in a position subject to the appointment power of the Mayor, the Mayor must exercise such appointment power within thirty (30) days from the date on which the Mayor receives official notification of the vacancy or within thirty (30) days after refusal of confirmation by City Council; otherwise, Council may fill the vacancy by majority vote

§ 5.05 is pretty straightforward. It clearly reflects the “separation of powers” doctrine that the Ohio Supreme Court previously recognized was a fundamental cornerstone of the Highland Heights Charter.Nevertheless, § 5.05 prompted some pretty interesting discussion last Tuesday night.
In the first act of active lobbying among CRC members that I’ve seen so far, former Mayor Swanson’s daughter, Linda Citraro, worked hard to rally support for changing § 5.05.
What did she want to change?
Citraro thought that the mayor should have unfettered power to fill vacancies without Council interference. She pitched removing the Charter language that gives Council confirmation authority and the language that allows Council to fill vacancies if an appointed position remains vacant after 30 days.
In other words, Citraro wanted to forget all about the balance of power and, as one CRC member summarized, give the mayor “carte blanche” instead.
The changes Citraro proposed were characterized by some CRC members as setting up a mayoral “dictatorship” ---at least with regard to the appointment of city officials working on the public dole.
Citraro was pretty persistent in trying to get support for her idea. She even went so far as to suggest that maybe the CRC could change the language of § 5.05 on its own.
She seemed a bit taken aback when a fellow CRC member reminded her that Highland Heights voters have the final say with regard to all changes made to the Charter.

Clearly, even after all this time, the wounds inflicted during the Paluf v. Feneli battle have not completely healed or gone away. They still exist---as shown by last Tuesday's discussion. What surprised me most was that the one still looking for retribution was not the CRC member who lost his council seat due to that squabble more than a decade ago. Nope, the ones apparently having a hard time letting go are ones from the mayoral side of the equation---even though, in fact, former Mayor Virginia Swanson emerged as the victor in that battle. 


As far as I am concerned. there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the wording of § 5.05.
What went wrong back in 1993 is that former mayor Virigina Swanson and the soon-to-be ejected council members lost sight of what § 5.05 and the rest of our Charter is all about: a balance of power.
Why do I drag up all this stuff from the city’s past?
Well, I've always thought that one of the real values of history is the lessons it teaches.We don’t need to change Charter language. We can avoid future mistakes simply by taking note of our past pitfalls.
This is the lesson that Paluf v. Feneli teaches:

In this town, residents expect Council to respect the mayor’s authority and vice versa. We are not a city of mayoral dictatorships or Council rubber stamps. The mayor can appoint, but Council must approve. It’s as simple as that.
Most importantly, residents expect the mayor and Council to work through their differences and, when necessary, to compromise in order to move forward and get things done. And woe to our elected officials if they fail to do that.

Coming Events:Tuesday March 15, 7 pm, City Hall. Residents are invited to come and discuss their ideas for the city’s new green space with landscape architect Doug Nemeckay.
Tuesday March 22, 7 pm, Community Center.The next meeting of the Charter Review Commission.

Saturday April 2. 9am-1pm, Service Department. Residents are invited to bring personal papers, documents, and old files for free, confidential shredding by a commercial shredding machine. Helpers will be available to assist, as needed. If you are looking for someone to thank for this service, you need look no farther than Council President Scott Mills. Mills is responsible for bringing this free service to our city, and he’s usually there to give residents a helping hand with unloading their stuff.

Happy Second Anniversary To Us!

March 8th marks the SECOND ANNIVERSARY of this blog. Two years, 109 entries and over 23,000 hits ....and still going strong.

 Promises Made/Promises Kept?
Updates


Promise One
Mayor Scott Coleman promised residents and Council on February 15th that he would talk with the city’s landscape architect about developing plans and ideas for the city’s new green space “by the end of the week,” i.e. by February 18th.
Promise Kept?
No.  Mayor Coleman gets a "Thumbs Down". I dub this one: "false pandering to the public".


Here's what happened after the promise was made. At the February 22nd Council meeting, Mayor Coleman admitted that he hadn’t yet spoken with the city’s landscape architect, Doug Nemeckay.
Nemeckay was present for a follow-up discussion at the March 1st Committee of the Whole meeting. Did Nemeckay come after speaking with the mayor? Did he come ready to talk turkey?
No and no.
Nemeckay said he spoke not with Mayor Coleman but with Service Director Thom Evans  (“Last week I got a call from Mr. Evans”). Significantly, Nemeckay also admitted that he had no idea what residents and Council had previously discussed with regard to the green space: “At this point I don’t know how many ideas there were or what they were.”
Council President Scott Mills placed the issue on the agenda once again for discussion at the March 15 Committee of the Whole and set a special start time: 7 pm.
Mills said that he would invite residents to come and share their ideas for the green space directly with Doug Nemeckay--- a good idea, given how unreliable communicating through the mayor turned out to be.
UPDATE:The 2011 budget that Mayor Coleman presented to council did not include any money for renovating or developing the city's new green space. $0.  The mayor has set aside more than $ 200,000 for renovating the old pool house in the park, to provide a base for the 60 or so kids who attend day camp for 8 weeks in the summer.
During the recent budget review process, members of Council's Legislative & Finance Committee (Leo Lombardo, Cathy Murphy and Lisa Stickan) insisted that a modest amount of money ($50,000) be set aside in the 2011 budget for the green space.
 Promise Two:
Mayor Scott Coleman pledged on February 22nd that the city’s online calendar would be kept “as up to date as it can be.”
Promise Kept?
It took a couple of weeks, but I give Mayor Coleman a "Thumbs Up" on this one, at least so far and at least with regard to the online calendar.
As of now, the calendar appears to be up-to-date. It even shows the Legislative & Finance Committee meeting scheduled for Sunday at 2 pm at City Hall. That meeting was set up just a couple of days ago.
Now, if the mayor just remembers to unlock the doors...


There are other signs that more attention is being paid to the city’s website. For example, the home page contains a new link to the form that residents can download to get reduced flood insurance for two years. (Unfortunately the only ones who can take advantage of the reduced rates are residents who were placed into flood zones for the first time as a result of the December 2010 FEMA flood maps.)
Having said that, I feel obliged to point out that there is still alot of out-dated or missing information on the website. For example, the City Council Meetings & Agendas page shows an agenda for a November 16, 2010 special meeting, and the most recent Council minutes posted are for the January 25, 2011 Council meeting.
Hopefully more than just the city's online calendar will be kept current from here on out.

Speaking of Politics
It is now official. Both Scott Mills and Scott Coleman will be vying for the mayor's chair in this November's election.  See the story links below.

http://hillcrest.patch.com/articles/highland-heights-council-president-to-run-for-mayor
http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2011/03/council_president_scott_mills.html
http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2011/03/highland_heights_mayor_scott_c_4.html


The FEMA Flood Maps
Having looked into the situation further, Brian Mader from the city engineer’s office concluded that many of the new flood plain designations just don’t make “any sense.”
I’ll say.
It does make sense, however, when you learn this one additional fact:
The state agency that is responsible for developing and overseeing the FEMA flood maps is the Ohio Department of Naturual Resources (ODNR).
Yep, the very same agency that supposedly “regulates” (and I use that term very loosely) gas drilling in the state is also responsible for maintaing and updating Ohio’s FEMA flood plain maps.


Mader said that ODNR approved amendments to the city’s flood plain maps in 1988 and 1994.
The 1988 amendment moved the area between the Williamsburg neighborhood and Kennelwood Drive from an insurance-required 100 year flood plain to a no insurance-required 500 year flood plain.
Because of the water retention and drainage infrastructure that was installed when that street was put in (including a 84” culvert), the 1994 amendment took Hawthorne Drive entirely out of a flood plain.
According to Mader, ODNR was supposed to take previously approved map amendments into account when developing the December 2010 FEMA flood maps, but for some reason, ODNR didn’t do that.


Go figure. ODNR drops the ball and once again residents suffer.


The city is taking the matter seriously. Mader was asked to develop a proposal and cost estimate for conducting a professional delineation of the areas in the city that have newly been designated as 100 year flood plains.
In the meantime, residents are in a bind.
My advice:  apply for reduced rate flood insurance if you can and keep your fingers (and toes) crossed as city officials and Brian Mader attempt to sort this all out.