IS IT TRUE October 30, 2014

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IS IT TRUE it is now the day that Mayor Winnecke has called upon the City Council to attend a special meeting to once again attempt to pass a budget for the City of Evansville for 2015?…the day has already been changed to tomorrow at 2 o’clock to accommodate a Department of Local Government Finance requirement?…the City County Observer thinks this is an appropriate action and encourages the Council to convene as the Mayor has requested?…the Mayor furthermore called his department heads together to admonish them to be highly competent with respect to their individual budgets in preparation to defend them when called upon to do so?…we hope he also asked them to try to find some further cuts to help in the process of reaching a budget that will pass?…we do hope that Mayor Winnecke is prepared to defend the revenue projections that are the basis for this whole budget fiasco?…the age old political maneuver of over estimating revenue to get a faux budget passed and to make up for the difference by either borrowing or depleting reserves has reached the end of its rope?…we do hope that cognizant thought rules the day and that Evansville passes a budget for 2015 that allows the city to live within its means?

IS IT TRUE the CCO did take the opportunity to pull up the two years of financial records during the Winnecke Administration to attempt to settle the dispute between Mayor Winnecke and City Council President John Friend about the reality of the reserve balances?…these numbers are from the master account schedules that have been audited by the Indiana State Board of Accounts (SBOA) for the years 2012 and 2013?…there are 76 individual accounts that are on the master account schedule for the City of Evansville with some holding restricted funds and others being operating funds?…the best and simplest measure to assess whether or not a particular budget was balanced for a given year is to compare the beginning overall balance of the 76 accounts to the ending balance?…for the 2012 fiscal year there was a decline in the aggregate balances of the 76 accounts of $9.92 Million?…for the 2013 fiscal year there was a decline in the aggregate balances of the 76 accounts of $5.71 Million?…for the first two years of the Winnecke Administration the 76 accounts therefore declined by a total of $15.63 Million thus proving Councilman Friend’s assertion that spending has exceed revenue and that the cash flow under Mayor Winnecke has been negative?…we repeat that this $15.63 Million in declining balances are audited results by the SBOA?

IS IT TRUE we have been provided with unaudited results that provide the aggregate cash balance of the 76 accounts as of September 30, 2014 and the reserve balance has been depleted by an additional $21.77 Million since New Year’s Day?…this being the case the total reserve depletion since the day Mayor Winnecke took office is now $37.4 Million and sinking daily?…we suspect that some of the unaudited portion from this year will be made up for by additional revenues from the November property tax collections, but the trend is clearly downward and the operating cash flow has never been balanced under Mayor Winnecke?…there is one possibility that the Mayor is correct in his assertions and that is if and only if the audits are off by $15.6 Million and the books to date for 2014 are off by $21.77 Million?…the chances of that being true rank right up there with a snowball’s chances in hell?

IS IT TRUE we truly hope that the Gods of Arithmetic will shine a light on the Civic Center and help Mayor Winnecke realize that the reserves really have been depleted as the audit record indicates?…we hope that realism prevails and that a budget that conforms to a true revenue expectation can be reached?…we also hope to see the childish threats from Mayor Winnecke threatening layoffs and delayed sewer projects will cease?…the numbers presented thus far do not include the Sewer and Water Utility so threatening to delay sewer projects over the 76 accounts in questions is not only misinformed, it is intentionally distracting from the task at hand?…it is time for the Kindergarten class to do its job?…the CCO and many others will be watching?

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45 COMMENTS

  1. wouldn’t it be nice if they held the meeting closer to the usual time (5:30) so those of us with a day job could attend and possibly comment? Holding the meeting at 2 pm may be convenient for the department heads and may even be good for news deadlines, but I’d like to see this fiasco in person.

  2. Question: where the hell has all the cash gone ?

    Should the City Council demand a full forensic audit to find out where these boatloads of booty went ?

    Arrrrgh, there may be pirates (embezzlers) afloat on the S.S. Evansville, plundering and plundering. Maybe need to visit the bilge for a count.

    • What is the relationship between the $ 29 Million plug entry for 2012 SBOA Audit, and the $ 37 Million decline in cash balances articulated by this article ?

    • I would guess that we have seriously overspent on the contracted Legal Services, but there have to be some other over-runs on other contractual services. A listing of those would make for some interesting reading, I think.

  3. Winnecke “The Incompetent”,– and his never ending “forked tongue” rhetoric, is going to rightfully put his re-election chances into the “Cooked Goose” category.
    I would suggest the Council members take note of that, as they contemplate Revenue ,Spending,
    Fact, and Fiction,– and the Responsibilities of the Office they hold..

  4. Is it true that the water/sewer department does not have their own separate banking account that is separate from the general funds in which the “SBOA” had thrown red flags on? Could it appear that “easy raiding” on these funds, from a self supporting entity? Or has this been corrected this past year?

    Is it true that all TIF moneys, city money that is going to appointed boards and their appointed salaries, ect should be slash to meet the budget needed? Why should residents suffer while these appointed elite waste those needed tax dollars?

    Is it true that the current “downtown” mayor missed his opportunity to distance himself from ties to the money draining arena back in 2011 while campaigning for that position? Any mention of it now being a drain on funds now shows his guilt of association?

    Is it true that part 2 of IIT was the wages from EVSC heads? Is it not true that School District is a separate taxing authority, and has no effect of the current city budget issues?

    Is it true that the CCO should post all wages from the elected, appointed, or hired that has bearing to the city finance that is similar to what was posted for the EVSC?

    Is it true the CCO should post the Library entity wages, for their taxing authority rate is 20-25% of EVSC?

  5. On the continuing Meijers saga I heard on WIKY this a.m. a ground breaking is scheduled for April 2015. WIKY says the information was directly from Meijers.

  6. Threatening to delay acting on the mandate to fix the sewers and menacing city workers with dark communiqués of possible layoffs pales in comparison to The Poop’s King Hell threat to … turn some of the street lights off. This guy really knows how to scare a council.

    He would probably like to be able to turn quite a few lights off right about now, especially the ones that are shining on him. Those are not enlightening beams from the Arithmetical Deity that are boring down on his little haid. They are the overdue rays of accountability. If he is going to continue to alternately refute and ignore the numbers he should resign, he’s in over his head and has lost any credibility he ever had.

    • We can be sure won’t turn off any of the lovely “period” streetlights we treated the downtowners to. I agree with you about him being in over his head, but I don’t trust Wayne Parke to choose his successor. It would likely be Marsha, who would make all sorts of “private arrangements” and get us in even deeper.
      A $21+ million deficit for one year staggers my imagination.

      • You just brought up another issue that chaps my butt. I’m sure these lights are nice and all but why should we spend money on this kind of luxury when we can’t even fully fund our road repair and salt for our roads this winter? Kelly Coures and his crowd are behind this I would bet.

        • Chris Christie must have been inspired by the CCO. I am sitting in the Chicago airport watching him tell a heckler to “sit down and shut up” on CNN.

          • That’s old, NBC had it up yesterday, Brian Williams on the evening nightly, about the only report worthy of viewing anymore in the main stream presentation of the “globally balanced current” nightly of late. (5:30pm. ) That crew does report the good science available per affects.

            So, facts are worthy news for those open to scientific analysis of the daily tipping points. Our consortium observes media data globally with the mainstreams from all regions. Something that does point out consistently is the planets connective news balance has effectively shrunken the audiences informational geo-physical range spanning.

            Its offered after the usual series of scat 14 schmooze put’s out via the conditional mechanical there. Flip it at again six, or you’ll get another :30 minutes of the mechanical. That’s ok we suppose, if the first hour didn’t sink in. Given the sourcing its probably why they keep repeating it.

        • Everybody who attends that meeting should probably take a “donut pillow” with them, as I expect everyone’s butt to be rubbed raw before it’s over!

      • It’s astounding that the ‘period’ streetlamp installation was allowed to move forward considering the undeniable challenges Evansville is facing. The optics of this elitist move are about what you’d have to expect from this administration.

    • Awarded: The usual two universal thermodynamic credits(UTC’s) for the entropic content. “A fair balance, for fare trade.” Key “tipping points”, as well. “Communiqués, enlightening beams ,the Arithmetical Deity, little haid’s, accountabilities boring down, menacing credibility threating.”

      While thinking and observing, the about situational reality and those predictable event horizons there within that city and county, ones entropic abstract has some forethought subliminal in the perceived, however comical scene. Predictable.

      “Its an application involved in a equivalent ratio problem.” 😉

      Pointing to “accountability” in those “chambers of the gulag” might have the equivalent strike value of an event similar in bents due of, Barney Fife giving an fast draw lesson to the assembly inside of a steel armor plated rotating Dodecahedron . In other words the total mass effect might have some “more” involved imminent bearing.
      Assumption? “not so much.” because there’s likely more to it when one gives the “eye” to the sustainable balance of the mess.

      http://www.icoachmath.com/math_dictionary/equivalent_ratios.html

      http://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/dodecahedron.html

      • Thanks, they have now been credited. Sometimes I think The Mod has little regard for my ease. The daily (lunch) fare is now duly covered.

    • Someone please go to the Council meeting and make the comment in open forum that the Mayor and his cronies will gladly follow through on the threat to turn off the street lights, because they don’t like light shining on their business.

  7. I have to shuffle my schedule around, but I’m going to do everything I can to be at that Council meeting. It’s up to them to save this city. Does anybody else see the irony in the fact that the City Council is chaired by a (one time?) “drunken sailor” and the Mayor spends like the proverbial drunken sailor?
    They may really need the SWAT team at this Council meeting. If Hizzoner doesn’t get his way, he may lapse into a temper tantrum and start throwing things and kicking the adults in the room in the shins.

    • I think the Commodore smells blood in the water. He can atone for some of his former sins by keeping the heat on. He can never be trusted though.

      If Winnie does go into a fit I believe it is the will of the people that he don his Chicken Suit and do the Hokey Pokey before commencing his shin kickery. I believe he took his best shot when he hired that guy to try to put a better face on the numbers NYF released. It didn’t work and it will be interesting to see what he cooks up for tomorrow. Lipstick can only cover so much until it becomes counter productive, and messy.

      • Can you imagine what a circus the next City election will be if it is those two Bozos squaring off for the Mayor’s office? One of them would win, but the people of this city would be big losers.

        • Ah Yes a backslapping flip flopping untrustworthy cross between Herb Tarleck and Louis Tulley

          vs a no nothing pitchman who graduated from the SNEGAL school of management and government and is led around by the nose by his ditzy wife and a “local personality” with Fifth Avenues tastes who knows the value of NOTHING.

    • At the meeting on Monday the only people from the Mayors office were Russ Lloyd and Steve Schaeffer. I do not think Mayor Lloyd Winnecke was there. What makes you think that he will attend this one?

      IMHO, I think that the Mayors office will once again be represented by Russ Lloyd and Steve Schaeffer. The Mayor would potentially lose too many “political brownie points” for being there to personally answer to the Evansville City Council. The Mayor would theoretically be seen as “weak” by any episodes of being “put on the spot” by questions and comments from City Council personnel. The Mayor would also then be in a position to have to respond to any critiques from citizens in the audience, and perhaps even department personnel heads or staff.

      So, what is the current Vegas odds on Mayor Lloyd Winnecke being at the special meeting of the Evansville City Council? Anybody want to put the odds out on this one?

    • Maybe we could send in the group ‘The Crypt Kicker 5’ to monitor those shin kicks ?

      Will Winnecke then lapse into a dance, and do the Monster Mash ?

  8. Evansville must have fallen through the looking glass. We have republicans on a binge of deficit spending, and democrats being fiscally conservative. Next thing will be republicans accusing democrats of starving children and old people.

    • IE. Winnecke is the perfect example of a RHINO. What I wonder is what effect all of this accuracy in financial figures will have on the IU giveaway.

  9. I guess if it gets bad enough the City might have to sell off some of its recently acquired expensive property or the vacated Roberts Stadium site or even the Fraud Center. I understand that the MINO knows a Realtor who would probably enjoy handling the listing for a small fee……

    • There was a Chinaman through here a few weeks ago to make an offer on the Fraud until he found out it wasn’t a wok. The local realtorhood wasn’t deterred, sent the guy from China hieing to the airport mumbling ‘该死的棕褐色西装’.

      • Heh, heh, ” a tad thread bared ones at that.” could have been the all that sand blowing around in the gale that forms thermally daily due the hot air rising down there.

  10. At least no one on the City Council or from the Mayor’s office has suggested that they take the City budget and bet it on black 29 on the wheel at the boat….

    Oh, wait a minute, some previous administration had already done that….

  12. Thought of the day,

    The British fight like lions, but are led by donkeys

    See ya tomorrow

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