John Booth's Observations at June COW Meeting
June/15/2010 06:22
Nobody has a clearer insight in to what is wrong with city finances than Shores resident John L. Booth. I thank John for sharing his observations and comments on the last finance committee of the whole meeting before the June budget hearing.
From John's report, it looks like the Cooper regime is going to foist yet another tax increase on the backs of Shores homeowners! And Shores residents will have to take John's word as to what happened, as for some reason only 15 minutes of the 6 hour meeting happened to get recorded on audio tape. Yet another breach of the transparency that Shores residents are promised!
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Brian Geraghty interrupted Ted Kedzierski continually throughout Ted's three-hour presentation of his proposed additional expense cuts, which totaled $495,000 for the next fiscal year 2010/2011. Every time Ted suggested a cut, Brian would immediately demand that Ted give him an answer as to what would replace the cut, task or position, and the exact dollar cost of making the proposed change. Brian never accepted as valid any of Ted's answers. Mayor Cooper offered no suggestions for cuts and was only interested in getting as close to a unanimous vote in support of a millage increase as possible. Councilman Graziani said very little.
Ted proposed a major change for the non-union pension benefits - a freeze effective immediately, plus a one-year hiatus in lieu of pay cuts, to be followed with an employee defined contribution pension plan, with a skimpy at first match by the Village. Brian Geraghty said that council could not even consider such a change for non- union salary employees with out checking with their lawyers. Ted replied quickly, "Oh but I did and Bob Buydens (pension committee) said it was OK."
So Brian Geraghty asked City Attorney McInerney (who was paid to attend the lengthy meeting) if the Council was free in fact to do this. To Geraghty’s shock and dismay, Mr. McInerney said yes, that it was OK to alter the benefits for non-union employees. Ted obviously did his homework on this issue.
Speaking of legal costs, despite the promise to do something after the recall was over about the current costly legal arrangement with the Clark Hill firm ($160,000 last year), the city has yet to put the legal services out for bidding.
Another point was that after every single expense cut he proposed, Ted Kedzierski waited to allow other council members to propose cuts of their own. He even baited them, demanding to hear suggestions from the other counsel members. Nobody spoke up other than Dan Schulte, who proposed his own separate $200,000 package of cuts. The other council members and Mr. Vick offered no suggestions, hardly a surprise.
The other council members had the gall to state that because Ted was the Chairman of the Finance Committee and Chairman of this meeting that Ted, and Ted alone had the responsibility to not only lay out his proposals with dollars attached but defend them under harsh and relentless cross examination. This cross-examination by other council members was often tag teamed. Ted was required to state not only the off setting cost to implement the changes/staffing cuts but also explain how the extra work load on the staff would be taken up!!! Mr. Vick never offered any real assistance; in fact he was adversarial to Ted.
Mr. Galbenski tried to play moderator, to steer the discussion to consensus, using wallboard taped up with discussion topic sheets. It was somewhat transparent that this was a role that Cooper asked him to play in order to steer the discussion to consent to a tax increase. Dan Schulte had to leave the meeting for a while. He returned at 11:00PM and he said that it was surreal; because the conversation had advanced very little in the intervening two hours during which he left the meeting. Harry Kurtz attended the entire meeting from 7:00PM until 1:35AM. At one point seeing he was the only member of the public still in attendance, Ted asked Harry to respond to a question. Harry had been dozing and could not believe he was being called upon to answer and was startled. I am told that after one of Ted's proposed cuts, Brian Vick lost his temper, got very red in the face, and pounded the table so hard that his lap top computer bounced up off the table and slammed shut! The council members other than Ted paid no attention to Vick’s behavior. Ted was surprised and agog.
Ted's whole position was that since the Plante Moran report of last fall; the Village knows we are facing a structural deficit which will become increasingly more difficult to deal with over the next three years. Therefore the Village needs to cut approximately $500,000 in additional expense cuts over and above those already reflected in the current draft of the 2010/2011 operating budget (a copy of which is available to the public on the Village website now). Next year it must cut another $500,000 from the operating budget.
The extra $500,000 in expense cuts in the upcoming fiscal year has to come from non-personnel expenses and salaried employees. The cuts in the 2011/2012 budget need to come from contract re-negotiations regarding the DPW and Public Safety unions, and possibly a change in garbage collection by privatization. In addition, Ted wanted to start to immediately reduce long term liabilities of all legacy costs and revisit the shelved changes he requested in the Village banked sick leave policy, previously voted down by the majority of the Council.
Things hit the fan when Ted proposed terminating both Julie, the Village court clerk, and Laurie in the upstairs Administrative office, the swing assignment expensive clerical person in the office, for a combined savings of $180,000. After Dan returned he proposed saving the identical sum by consolidating the positions of Chief Financial Officer and Manager.
The outcome was mixed and not at all what Mayor Cooper wanted. Ted made a motion to accept $495,000 in his proposed expense cuts from the draft budget for 10/11, and Dan seconded the motion. After discussion, the vote was 2 YES & 5 NO, so the motion failed. Then someone else made a motion to accept some very minor dollars cuts plus a 0.7 mill increase in the millage. The motion was seconded and after discussion the vote was 2 NO & 5 YES, so this motion passed.
Had Ted's motion passed, there have been no need for the millage increase, and there was a better than even opportunity to end the upcoming fiscal year with a surplus of at least $250,000 to add to the general fund. This would have provided a reserve for budget stabilization next year should there be unforeseen problems such as weather related overtime, an error in forecasting property tax revenues, or the costs associated with operational reorganization and severance to former employees due to job elimination.
Unbelievably Brian Vick admitted in his new draft budget that the Village would underestimate budget revenue estimates from property tax receipts for the fiscal year ending this June by $128,000. Vick had those numbers available in February and disclosed nothing!!!
One fact that came out: the Shores has been subsidizing the swim team to the tune of approximately $20,000 per year, mostly for two paid swim coaches @ $7,500 each. Were the Shores to charge the parents of the swimmers for this service, it would cost the parents of each swimmer $350 per season.
John Booth
From John's report, it looks like the Cooper regime is going to foist yet another tax increase on the backs of Shores homeowners! And Shores residents will have to take John's word as to what happened, as for some reason only 15 minutes of the 6 hour meeting happened to get recorded on audio tape. Yet another breach of the transparency that Shores residents are promised!
------------------------------------------
Brian Geraghty interrupted Ted Kedzierski continually throughout Ted's three-hour presentation of his proposed additional expense cuts, which totaled $495,000 for the next fiscal year 2010/2011. Every time Ted suggested a cut, Brian would immediately demand that Ted give him an answer as to what would replace the cut, task or position, and the exact dollar cost of making the proposed change. Brian never accepted as valid any of Ted's answers. Mayor Cooper offered no suggestions for cuts and was only interested in getting as close to a unanimous vote in support of a millage increase as possible. Councilman Graziani said very little.
Ted proposed a major change for the non-union pension benefits - a freeze effective immediately, plus a one-year hiatus in lieu of pay cuts, to be followed with an employee defined contribution pension plan, with a skimpy at first match by the Village. Brian Geraghty said that council could not even consider such a change for non- union salary employees with out checking with their lawyers. Ted replied quickly, "Oh but I did and Bob Buydens (pension committee) said it was OK."
So Brian Geraghty asked City Attorney McInerney (who was paid to attend the lengthy meeting) if the Council was free in fact to do this. To Geraghty’s shock and dismay, Mr. McInerney said yes, that it was OK to alter the benefits for non-union employees. Ted obviously did his homework on this issue.
Speaking of legal costs, despite the promise to do something after the recall was over about the current costly legal arrangement with the Clark Hill firm ($160,000 last year), the city has yet to put the legal services out for bidding.
Another point was that after every single expense cut he proposed, Ted Kedzierski waited to allow other council members to propose cuts of their own. He even baited them, demanding to hear suggestions from the other counsel members. Nobody spoke up other than Dan Schulte, who proposed his own separate $200,000 package of cuts. The other council members and Mr. Vick offered no suggestions, hardly a surprise.
The other council members had the gall to state that because Ted was the Chairman of the Finance Committee and Chairman of this meeting that Ted, and Ted alone had the responsibility to not only lay out his proposals with dollars attached but defend them under harsh and relentless cross examination. This cross-examination by other council members was often tag teamed. Ted was required to state not only the off setting cost to implement the changes/staffing cuts but also explain how the extra work load on the staff would be taken up!!! Mr. Vick never offered any real assistance; in fact he was adversarial to Ted.
Mr. Galbenski tried to play moderator, to steer the discussion to consensus, using wallboard taped up with discussion topic sheets. It was somewhat transparent that this was a role that Cooper asked him to play in order to steer the discussion to consent to a tax increase. Dan Schulte had to leave the meeting for a while. He returned at 11:00PM and he said that it was surreal; because the conversation had advanced very little in the intervening two hours during which he left the meeting. Harry Kurtz attended the entire meeting from 7:00PM until 1:35AM. At one point seeing he was the only member of the public still in attendance, Ted asked Harry to respond to a question. Harry had been dozing and could not believe he was being called upon to answer and was startled. I am told that after one of Ted's proposed cuts, Brian Vick lost his temper, got very red in the face, and pounded the table so hard that his lap top computer bounced up off the table and slammed shut! The council members other than Ted paid no attention to Vick’s behavior. Ted was surprised and agog.
Ted's whole position was that since the Plante Moran report of last fall; the Village knows we are facing a structural deficit which will become increasingly more difficult to deal with over the next three years. Therefore the Village needs to cut approximately $500,000 in additional expense cuts over and above those already reflected in the current draft of the 2010/2011 operating budget (a copy of which is available to the public on the Village website now). Next year it must cut another $500,000 from the operating budget.
The extra $500,000 in expense cuts in the upcoming fiscal year has to come from non-personnel expenses and salaried employees. The cuts in the 2011/2012 budget need to come from contract re-negotiations regarding the DPW and Public Safety unions, and possibly a change in garbage collection by privatization. In addition, Ted wanted to start to immediately reduce long term liabilities of all legacy costs and revisit the shelved changes he requested in the Village banked sick leave policy, previously voted down by the majority of the Council.
Things hit the fan when Ted proposed terminating both Julie, the Village court clerk, and Laurie in the upstairs Administrative office, the swing assignment expensive clerical person in the office, for a combined savings of $180,000. After Dan returned he proposed saving the identical sum by consolidating the positions of Chief Financial Officer and Manager.
The outcome was mixed and not at all what Mayor Cooper wanted. Ted made a motion to accept $495,000 in his proposed expense cuts from the draft budget for 10/11, and Dan seconded the motion. After discussion, the vote was 2 YES & 5 NO, so the motion failed. Then someone else made a motion to accept some very minor dollars cuts plus a 0.7 mill increase in the millage. The motion was seconded and after discussion the vote was 2 NO & 5 YES, so this motion passed.
Had Ted's motion passed, there have been no need for the millage increase, and there was a better than even opportunity to end the upcoming fiscal year with a surplus of at least $250,000 to add to the general fund. This would have provided a reserve for budget stabilization next year should there be unforeseen problems such as weather related overtime, an error in forecasting property tax revenues, or the costs associated with operational reorganization and severance to former employees due to job elimination.
Unbelievably Brian Vick admitted in his new draft budget that the Village would underestimate budget revenue estimates from property tax receipts for the fiscal year ending this June by $128,000. Vick had those numbers available in February and disclosed nothing!!!
One fact that came out: the Shores has been subsidizing the swim team to the tune of approximately $20,000 per year, mostly for two paid swim coaches @ $7,500 each. Were the Shores to charge the parents of the swimmers for this service, it would cost the parents of each swimmer $350 per season.
John Booth