LET’S FIX THAT By George Lumley, CPA
QUESTIONS FOR CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES
With the city election coming up does the Evansville electorate care about the knowledge, beliefs, and willingness to lead of the candidates, or is the election just a popularity contest? I thought running a city with a $300 million plus annual combined budget would require a very mature, knowledgeable and skilled group of people. However, with my recent introduction to Evansville’s government, I feel that I am back in junior high. The cliques, better-than-everyone-else attitude, secret note passing, private clubs and rumormongering seem to thrive among the elected and appointed. You say “ewe†can’t change city hall; I say, let’s fix that by electing leaders instead of sheep that follow blindly because they know no better.
It is easy to get candidates to speak in general terms as to items that have been in the news. Ask a candidate about a specific project: Do you support the new downtown hotel? The answer will be some general justification: We need to focus on saving our downtown and revitalizing the inner-city. When asked if it will be a big success and profitable venture, they quickly respond: Oh yes, with all the downtown improvements like the convention center, Ford Center, and medical school coming, it will be a big success and highly profitable. Then you ask something a little more complicated: If it will be so profitable, why do you think the private investors pulled their money out of the project, not wanting to risk anything? Then you get the deer-in-the-headlights look, and the candidate is quickly moving to other issues. They don’t even give you the opportunity to ask the really complicated analogy: If it is a 60 million dollar project and the city puts in 25 million as a gift and the other 35 million is a bank loan – isn’t this like filing a bankruptcy reorganization and getting rid of 25 million in debts and equity before the venture even gets started? Why is it a good project for us when we did not even leverage a few private dollars?
I was conversing with one candidate and asked for a position on the blight. The response was that he/she didn’t have one – the blight was not an issue at the primary and he/she really didn’t have any interest in it. Wow – so much for getting any details on fighting blight, demolitions, and land banking. I asked the candidate what his/her focus was, and the candidate said it was finance; the budget was out of control and needed to be balanced. I asked how he/she would balance the budget and they looked at me like, well stupid, raise revenues and cut expenses of course. Ok, what revenues are you going to raise and what expenses are you going to cut? Again, the deer-in-the-headlights look.
Not one that gives up easily, I thought I would try again with something pertinent to the zombie house cause that I am currently working on. At issue is the fact that money Evansville has received in grants and appropriated out of local funds for the demolition of residential zombie houses is being spent on other things.
Some, like the Director of Department of Metropolitan Development, don’t see this as an issue. He told me that not taking out 50 houses five years ago under a grant did not cause the blight problem we have today. Well it did not cause the problem but it sure has contributed to the continued spread. Zombie houses are like apples – one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. If each zombie house contributed to spoiling just one more each year, that would mean that not taking out these fifty houses created 1550 just five years later. With one zombie house nearby, property values drop – no one really knows how much, because there are no longer any sales. No one wants to buy close to the zombie house. Zombie houses kill the value of a neighborhood.
Besides the grants, the county has appropriated funding for direct demolitions out of the riverboat fund. Appropriated means that the city council has by law (ordinance) agreed to allow the citizens’ funds to be spent for a particular purpose. The council has appropriated between $500,000 and $1,000,000 per year in the last 4 years out of the riverboat fund to be spent on direct residential demolition expenses. Most funds have been spent, but not for residential demolitions as the ordinance (law) requires. For example: In 2014, the city financial statement shows $640,000 to be spent for demolition out of the riverboat funds; however, records obtained through a public access request from the Building Commission show that the city only spent $346,000 on actual residential demolitions. I have not been granted access to additional records yet, but I suspect the additional charges were not legal expenditures of this fund.
We have the same problem in 2015. Although not yet provided access to the actual billings of what the expenditures were for, I was able to ascertain that in the first six months of 2015, significant amounts that are not residential demolition expense are being charged or hidden in this riverboat account. Just to make sure other expenses were not allowed by the council, I attended the joint finance committee and a regular city council meeting, and they clarified that only the direct demolition expenses were to be charged to this account.
Four items of expense that I could identify without the detailed records were related to a grant for taking down houses in the flood plains. According to the Courier and Press coverage, all of the expenses for the program were to be covered by the grant. So why was approximately $15,000 charged to the riverboat demolitions and not the grant fund. Was this poor accounting or creative accounting to take from this fund while leaving the $15,000 floating in the grant fund to be claimed as “found†money and used for special interest projects?
This sounded like a good question for a candidate. So I asked the next candidate I saw: There is an appropriation in the riverboat fund for paying for demolition of zombie houses. The council clarified that only direct demolition costs are to be charged to that fund. Things other than direct demolition are being charged, specifically grant expenditures, that may be illegal expenditures out of the riverboat fund – what do you think about that? Another deer in the headlights.
This candidate emailed me the next day with what they apparently considered a better answer. The following is most of what was said:
“I am not aware of any misappropriations in the city budget nor do I suspect any. The IN State Board of Accounts has reviewed the city books and given the city of Evansville a clean bill of health. The city also has an excellent credit rating. The Mayor prepares the budget and city council approves it and sometimes approves transfer of funds. I would encourage you to speak with Mayor Winnecke or the City Controller , Russ Lloyd, Jr. to answer any questions you have regarding the city budget. Additionally, Kelley Coures as head of DMD is the appropriate person to answer any questions regarding federal funds and blight elimination. He has been a great wealth of information for the candidates and I am sure would be available to any citizen.â€
Please people, vote for candidates willing to discuss the issues in depth while displaying that they have the knowledge to lead and not just follow like sheep to slaughter. The election is not a junior high popularity contest, and I hope you are not playing follow the leader but asking questions and making mature decisions. Ask your candidate about why money available for demolition of zombie houses is being spent on other things, and what does he/she intend to do about it? Why do we need to spend millions of dollars for a land bank now if we have not been spending everything appropriated to fighting blight in the recent past?
FOOTNOTE: George Lumley is a CPA and a past employee of the Indiana State Board of Account.  Mr. Lumley is becoming well known and respected for his outstanding work on “Blight Property” issues. Mr. Lumley as taken to task officials in the DMD because of the decisions that they are making to fund “Blight” programs are missing their intended mark significantly.
There are only a couple of candidates that can think at all. George is a little late to game. Anyone who didn’t assimilate either didn’t run or got beat in the primary. Get rid of healthcare coverage for city council and there will be none.
Is this column designed simply to create voter anger? Because its suggestions are bad for the City, near short term, and no doubt in the long term.
We cannot expect to motivate quality candidates to run for office if the pay and benefits are insulting (which is what eliminating health coverage for part-time service members will do – it is a sloppy and disgusting idea).
It is not being efficient to cut TEACHERS pay. It costs so much more to correct an underpaid, crappy teacher’s mistakes than it does to pay an excellent teacher well-deseved professional pay and benefits.
Same is true for Council Members, full-time AND part-time.
Don, the really good public officials would do it for free. The really good teachers would work for McDonald wages. In fact many of the so called AIDS in the classroom actually carry the the burden of education of the children while the teacher is trying to figure out how to get more money. The AIDS work for McDonald wages. Education is one of the very few unionized jobs where you can start out and finish doing the same thing, like teaching first grade, and advance in salary from $25,000 to $85,000 still teaching first grade. Actually they often move aging teachers from the lower grades because they are less effective and energetic than the new recruits. I agree that you should not cut a crappy teachers pay – we should fire them – and hire one of the college kids working at McDonalds to take their place.
So “good” teachers and “good” public officials don’t deserve a living wage?
One of the many problems with McDonald’s wages is the pressure these workers feel away from the job and in getting to the job. When your daycare and housing costs consume most of your wages, you probably don’t have a car and struggle to eat every month. This is the experience we want teachers to have? The idea of a living wage is that the economic pressure just to eat, live indoors, have quality child care and reliable transportation are alleviated. Only when people feel secure in their basic needs can they focus on the needs of others.
And the average fast food worker is not in college. They are in their 30s or older. Your life experience appears to be one stereotype after another.
Unfortunately, most activists are wholly uninformed and just running around screaming “conspiracy!” This is one of the reasons “good” people don’t get involved in public service. There’s always some self-important voice who hasn’t bothered to really read or understand anything or simply can’t. It’s a huge problem that government, even local government, has become very complicated. However, it’s absolutely not the case that intentional misconduct abounds. My experience has been that stupidity and waste are the biggest problems. I’d actually have more hope if it was mostly intentional misconduct. That would facilitate the idea that new leaders would be different.
At the local level, there is very little power enjoyed by officials outside of their work-related decisions. Unfortunately, it still takes money to make money. Sweetheart investments and the like are lost on most elected folk. They don’t have the money to truly get in on any graft. That’s actually a good thing. It demonstrates that the type of person elected has changed. What I’ve seen are mostly social opportunities- parties, vacations, sporting events. I’m actually okay with this sort of thing. It’s a lot better than what has occurred in the past.
In terms of pay, do you have any idea the number of hours spent on public issues of local officials? Do you realize that many of the meetings are at night or on the weekends? Do you know the call volume of all hours of the night and day? What is sad about your statements is that you are clearly trying to limit those who could serve the public to basically your own image. You’re retired. So you must be perfect for the job? I thought the idea of public service was to reduce the number of old, white guys and facilitate the service of people from all walks of life. Wages and benefits help make that happen. Without them only old, or rich people could serve.
Random Thoughts, Are you saying teacher aids and McDonald workers don’t deserve a living wage? I think all full time employees deserve a living wage and health benefits. I also think there are good public official but like attorneys I haven’t met any yet. But what I think really doesn’t matter that much. I am truly just one in a million. Please use this forum to educate us dum old white folks. I am a slow learner but I try.
No you don’t . You are a Republican. You cry for small government and capitalism unencumbered with regulation. You don’t think anything of the sort about full time employees. Your writings to date have decried government intervention. You’re also an overt racist who’s stupid enough to put it in writing. You are correct that you are one in a million. If one only had to garner the smart voters, we would have a different government, but unfortunately it takes a majority. And you are solidly in the majority.
No Don. This column (George Lumley”s) is designed for serious minded citizens who are capable of thinking for themselves and want to solve serious problems. Unfortunately, good information also elicits comments from non-thinkers whose knowledge consists of, not reality, but daily doses of partisan propaganda.
DB-in all reality in Politics it’s NEVER been about the Pay,— the politicos spend vast amounts of money to try to be re-elected and retain that “Power”–it’s about the “POWER” (and Ego)– all we ever see in the Political arena is the same faces seeking office,–sometimes it seems it’s a game of musical chairs and green grease in all the right places. Try to play a different “Tune”–and the “Power Brokers” will slap you down,–as exampled by the last Mayoral election. It’s a Dirty “Game” and the “Money” bets are placed every election on the Horse named “POWER”.
If you want to spend decent money for “Real Value” to the Citizens,— it’s time to relegate the the Mayor’s office to Ceremonial,–and Hire a City Manager.
Never fear Mr. Becker, as long as the net worth of a handful of the local elite keeps growing, we are unlikely to see a break in the chain of candidates propped up and elected to office. So called “developers” in this town do use their own money on their projects, they use the taxpayer’s money. If they do use any of their own money it is usually to get a candidate elected as insurance that the pipeline remains open, but only after they have set up a 501C corporation so they can at least get the benefit of a tax break.
Mr. Lumley, when you finally get to view the DMD documents you asked to see, if as you suspect the funds were used for other things not supported by the program’s guidelines, I highly recommend you contact these people with your findings.:
https://www.hudoig.gov/report-fraud
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