An Easy Solution To This Financial Problem Is A Balanced Budget Ordinance

20

An Easy Solution To This Financial Problem Is A Balanced Budget Ordinance

By City Council member Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley

It would place the onus on the Administration. They would be obligated to review expenditures and revenue as of June 30th and make a forecast as to expenditures and revenue through December 31st. If expenditures are outpacing revenue, the Administration would be obligated to reduce spending and divide it as evenly as possible over August through December. And do so with the inclusion of City Council or at least the Finance Chair.

What they do now is close the books on all nonessential vendors in October or November. Bills submitted in these months aren’t paid unless essential, like Vectren, until January or February. They had so many bills in 2014 that they couldn’t pay them all in January and some got pushed to February of 2015. A friend of mine sold a trailer to the City in October and was not paid until February. The contract employee who runs the Rental Registry went 4 months without getting paid last winter.

Forcing an analysis and forecast would theoretically pull spending in line with revenue and potentially get vendors paid sooner, while pushing fewer bills into the next budget cycle.

As of June 30th of 2015, expenditures were outpacing revenue by about 5 million. We know that revenue in the second half of the year is less than revenue in the first half. Property tax collections in June run about 55% of the total collected, and the bulk of the City’s other revenue sources wind down in the coldest months- zoo admissions, pool receipts, permit applications, etc.

Revenue was 43 million and expenditures were 48 million as of June 30th this year. The blue book for June doesn’t accurately reflect this, as Russ invested property tax receipts in the Hoosier Fund for 21 days, so selling those investments shows up as revenue- it’s a double entry. He and I went over actual numbers at the August town hall meeting. He said revenue for the year would be 79 million. So we have 36 million in revenue to collect and 31 million that can be spent. That’s a bit over $5 million a month for July through December. We could with the right ordinance, pace that out over the rest of the year.

I don’t think I’m having an original thought, but I have not looked at other cities to see if they have an ordinance that can be modeled. What do you think?

Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley

3rd Ward City Council Member

Please take time and vote in today’s “Readers Poll”. Don’t miss reading today’s Feature articles because they are always an interesting read. Please scroll at the bottom of our paper so you can enjoy our creative political cartoons. Copyright 2015 City County Observer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without our permission

20 COMMENTS

  1. Excellent thought SBR. No household or business can survive spennding more than their income. Furthermore, paying one’s bills on time saves money.
    How do we make it happen? Will Gail commit to it?

  2. Again I say it is perfectly obvious who SHOULD be running this city. What a pity for the citizens of Evansville that Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley’s name is not on the ballot for mayor.

    Instead, we have two candidates, neither one of which is capable of taking this city to the next level.

  3. It’s bad enough that Russ plugged the bank reconciliations for the 2012 Audit, and wrote off $ 29 Million in Fund Cash Balances.

    Fast forward, and “the Plugger” is at it again, now he is counting the cashing in of a CD as ‘Revenue’. Great accounting, jerk !

  4. We need accountability with the ordinances we have before creating new ones. I presented claims that did not appear to be legal expenditures of the riverboat funds. The council did not approve the appropriation for more than $200k of operating expenses charged as demolition nor did they approve the individual claims. Is there any follow up on this? Did anyone call the state police to investigate? Did anyone ask for a resignation? It doesn’t not matter what the ordinance (law) says, or what is appropriated for a particular purpose if in the detail the bills are charged to whatever account the controller chooses. That trailer that was paid for four months later might have been charged to the police pension fund for all we know. With the accounting I discovered you might as well just make one combined appropriation. We seem to have no accounting and the council is trying to fix the problem by extortion or black mail. Instead of joining the bad guys with more bad behavior – they should stay out of the riot and call the police. If the city controller does not want to keep proper accounting records they need to pursue him and fix that problem first.

    • “… they should stay out of the riot and call the police.” (George Lumley)

      * * * * * * * * * *

      What is their number? Exactly who is charged with disciplining the violations of statute by the common council and the administration?

      • I don’t know the number right off – I assume they still take calls. They have a website where you can submit complaints. This non emergency complaint probably does not warrant 911 status yet. A brief of what was discovered and why you think it is a crime would be the starting place. If they (police) agree, and a resolution cannot be met, then they have to convince a prosecutor to press charges. If the prosecutor agrees that is when the offender agrees to resign or make restitution to avoid the charges. Sometimes the prosecutor has to be convinced to take action. He he (prosecutor) is secure and cant be beat at election time, forget about him taking any action.

  5. George. That seems like something the state board of accounts should find when doing audits. We all know how that turns out. I know you are trying to help but

    • The SBOA refers what they find to the state police for investigation. If the council, any officers, or even employees and citizens discover what they think is white collar crime they should call the police and have it investigated. I thought I would give the council members the opportunity to correct the problem but I will be filing a complaint if no action is taken with the State Police. I will also remind the public of their disregard of whistle blowers. Again my “let’s fix that” approach is with pen and paper – not a hammer and nails. I will leave the carpentry to the experts.

      • George, I respect what you have done and are trying to do. And fully support your efforts. Thankfully you have the accounting and government background that many of us do not have and know what to look for as far as documents are concerned. If you need private citizens to co-sign your “let’s fix that” approach to show solidarity in calling in the authorities , I for one would be glad to step up as I am sure many others would also. I believe that every one of us needs to support the accuracy and trustworthiness that you stand for and am dismayed that so many folks in Evansville are taking the easy way out by walking away and not doing their civic duty. Thank you for taking the initiative and leading as others are also doing, SBR in particular, but there are others as well. Evansville is great at letting the other guy do it and that has gotten this town in a big mess.

    • What a joke,
      You make a good point. If I wasn’t a past member of that organization, I would probably say the SBOA does a good job at doing what they do – all show and no action; but I will not say that because they do figure some things out and have on occasion made a difference. The SBOA admits they are understaffed and with books like Evansville keeps – well – enough with the complements. Things are just bad all over.

  6. As usual, SBR offers good ideas that would move Evansville forward in a sane manner. Throwing money at ill-advised projects with little or no oversight, the current model, is not working.

    • It is such a shame that we are losing her efforts on behalf of the people of Evansville. I’m sure this comment will spur some nasty personal attacks on the lady with lies and half-truths spread by the same handful of hateful losers.

      • elkaybee,

        We are loosing SBR from the council and I agree – that is truly a loss, especially considering what it looks like we will have next year. Hopefully we will still have her as an active citizen committed to the changes she has been advocating. Maybe SBR will just rest up a little and come back stronger than ever.

  7. The challenges with the balance budget idea is that the Council will not have any experienced financial analyst and don’t even mention Hargis, should she be elected. Winnecke has Umbaugh who has been paid 2.5 million since Winnecke entered room 302. What is needed is a required reserve fund ordinance. Many Cities and Town have such an ordinance. Winnecke budgets to spend every last dime and more. We should be running our city like most households and have savings to full back on. Like at South Bend, 29 m in the General Fund, Park Fund 4 m. TIF funds 54 m , ,We pail to a city at is 20,000 least than us. PITIFUL

  8. I like this balanced budget concept but at this point it can only help us going forward. We will take that as it will do good. However right now we need to stand up to this extortion. If the city wants to pay its debts it will agree wholeheartedly to pass the balanced budget ordinance fast. Then we have to pay the bills so some cash must be freed up with a signed agreement from the administration to pay the debt in full by Dec 31, 2015 to get everything back where if should be. Also, there must be a signed agreement from the administration to cut spending across all lines as much as possible including cutting staff in places where there is redundancy and to look first at administrative positions and this must start immediately in this quarter so that direct and accountable results are seen. Lastly the better and more transparent accounting system that SBR and Ms Reicken have recommended must start to be put in place and be ready to begin Jan 1, 2016.

  9. ANY TYPE OF BALANCED BUDGET LAW IS WORTHLESS UNLESS THERE IS A SET FIGURE IN THE LAW STATING A MAXIMUM RATE OF GROWTH FOR THE BUDGET EXPENDITURES. Whoops. Didn’t notice the caps lock on.

    For any balanced budget to work, outlay cannot exceed income, which seems to be where Evansville’s leaders can’t do the math. It seems there are not any public servants running for office any longer. Brinkerhoff-Riley giving up is a sad thing, but can’t say I blame her.

Comments are closed.