It seems like only yesterday when City budget time was a lot like waiting for the election of a new Roman Catholic pope: minimal information provided to the public, followed by a puff of white smoke and an announcement. Except that then-City Manager Tim Schuenke made sure the City’s budget smoke was accompanied by plenty of mirrors to mask his fiscal charades.
Back then, aldermen got their Council meeting packets by home delivery. But even those aldermen who diligently studied their budget materials over the weekend wound up dazed and confused come Monday night’s meetings, when Schuenke would enter the Council Chambers at 7:25 p.m. with fistfuls of brand new budget numbers still warm from the copy machine.
That was usually followed by head scratching, mumbling and bumbling, and budgets that turned into big deficits by the end of every year this millennium except 2006-2007.
Now the public can view most of that information on the City’s website, although that hardly makes the City’s sausage-making budget process anything to cheer about – even if current City Mgr. Jim Hock isn’t quite as deceptive as his predecessor.
But this past Monday night’s budget workshop – held following the regular COW meeting so as to improve the chances Alds. Allegretti, Bach and Carey might actually show up – provided a glimmer of hope when a couple of good things occurred that we hurry to note, because we expect that they will be undone as soon as the affected special interests wake up, Ald. Robert Ryan decides to show up, and Hock actuaries-up.
The most notable good thing was that a “consensus” of aldermen – admittedly only a temporary snapshot of opinion at one brief moment in time – actually agreed to act responsibly and budget for the full amount of police and fire pension funding formally recommended by those plans’ actuaries rather than some lesser amount that’s being bandied about.
As we discussed in one of last week’s posts (“Pension Funding Newest Variety Of Budget Gibberish,” Feb. 22), there seems to be some kind of bizarre, unexplained alliance between Hock and those pension boards on this issue. Frankly, that’s puzzling, given that deferring funding of what we understand are already underfunded pension plans does not appear to be consistent with the fiduciary duties of those pension boards’ members.
Ald. Frank Wsol correctly pointed out that the City should fund those pensions according to the official recommendations it has received from the funds’ actuaries, rather than according to the bogus-sounding quasi-predictions from Hock and a couple of pension trustees about how new state pension laws might be implemented and what contributions the funds’ actuaries might recommend this coming November – especially where neither pension fund has formally requested the City to actually cut the tax levy to reflect the deferral of funding.
Wsol also was spot-on in rebuffing Hock’s vague scare-tactics of linking this full-funding to additional budget cuts or tax increases, calling it just more “kicking the can down the road” management at which Hock has proved adept since coming here three years ago. Exactly!
The other notable good thing was a non-consensus: a 3 (“Yes”: DiPietro, Allegretti & Bach) to 3 (“No”: Carey, Sweeney & Wsol) split on budgeting for yet another year’s worth of arbitrary giveaways to private community groups-of-choice Center of Concern, Meals on Wheels, and the Maine Center for Mental Health. The 3-to-3 tie defeated that proposal – at least until Ald. Robert Ryan shows up at the next budget workshop, requests a new “consensus” on the issue, and then provides the additional “Yes” vote needed to add-back that expenditure.
As we’ve said before on several occasions, if these private organizations provide essential services that the City should be providing to its residents, then these organizations should be treated as vendors and paid as vendors, under legally-binding contracts with the City to provide a fixed amount of clearly-defined services at an agreed price.
That’s effectively what City Council Policy No. 6 requires for departing from the City’s general policy that public money can’t be donated to private organizations. But this and prior City Council’s have been derelict for years in following that policy or demanding any accountability from the organizations that have sucked well over a million dollars out of the City treasury in the past 5-6 years.
Perhaps the best example of no accountability is the Center of Concern (“CofC”), the single biggest recipient of City funding. It’s February 18, 2011 funding submission to the City claims that it served 6,770 Park Ridge residents through 8,350 “contacts” during 2010.
Yet that submission makes clear that none of those “contacts” were for housing-related assistance; and we can’t tell from that submission exactly what other services were provided by any of those “contacts” – except that, for Park Ridge residents (as stated on the fourth page of that submission): “Statistics reflect number of services tracking contacts, not hours. Total PR contacts was 8,350. Service hours are not tracked.”
In other words, assuming that CofC’s records of the number of “contacts” are accurate, we still don’t know what services those “contacts” represent, how much time was commited to those services, and exactly what each delivery of them cost for that $55,000 of our tax dollars the City Council threw at CofC last year. For all we know, that entire 55 grand could have gone for 6,770 of those famous CofC “wellness” telephone calls:
“Mr. So and So, this is the Center of Concern. Glad to know that you’re well enough to answer your telephone today. Have a good one, and we look forward to talking with you again tomorrow.”
Mr. Park Ridge taxpayer, that will be $8.12. Please bend over.
Sound crazy? It sure is! In some respects, it sounds like an outright scam. But it appears that’s the way our City officials have been willing to throw our money around, even as our streets and sidewalks crumble, our homes flood, sewers collapse, and other things that the City is required to do get neglected or deferred.
So the little bit of fiscal sanity we got from the folks around The Horseshoe last Monday night was a welcome respite.
Too bad it’s not likely to last past the next budget meeting.
UPDATE 3/7/11: As 0ne commentator has pointed out, we miscalculated the cost of those “wellness” calls because we divided last year’s $55K donation of City tax dollars by the 6,770 individuals who CofC claims to have served, instead of the 8,350 service “contacts.” So instead of $8.12 per one-minute average “wellness call” (assuming that’s the service for which the City is being charged) it’s only $6.58 per call; and instead of that “whopping $486.72/hr.” equivalent CofC is getting for those services, it’s only $394.80 per hour. We apologize for those errors.
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6 comments so far
Here’s an idea: Kill the “are you OK, Mrs. Elderly Alone?” calls and save the $8.12. And when the out of town adult kids can’t reach Mrs. E.A. for three days and call the Park Ridge cops, who by law HAVE to come out, you can pull a cop off the beat do do the same thing for a lot more than eight bucks.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s another idea: Impose a $50 or $100 charge on these kinds of cop visits – like we do for ambulance service – and maybe those out of town adult kids will become a bit more responsible, innovative and self-sufficient by giving a key to Mrs. E.A.’s next-door neighbor so the neighbor can check on her when they can’t reach her by phone. That saves the taxpayers money AND creates another opportunity for that “volunteerism” we pride ourselves on.
Or, as we previously have advocated, let the City treat CofC as a vendor of those services and enter into a CONTRACT with CofC for a specific amount of such services at a specific price; and then require CofC to bill the City for each such service up to the agreed-upon price. Of course, since we’re talking about a $55,000 contract, it’s likely these services would have to go out for competitive bidding. Or maybe the City would decide it can have one of its existing non-sworn police employees make a few 15 second phone calls for a lot less than $8.12 a pop.
Hey, maybe we could have high school kids do it for service hours, creating even more opportunities for “volunteerism.”
The more we look at it, the more it looks like the CofC is running a really sweet deal for itself.
Thanks, PW, for pointing out how irresponsible “kids” (who may well be in their 40s, 50s and even 60s) foist off their parents on the taxpayers, or a group like Center of Concern that is happy to take public funds to do what those “kids” should be doing themselves, with their own or their parents’ money.
No wonder we’re going broke.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Meanwhile, CofC doesn’t even keep track of the time it expends on its 6,770 “contacts.” But if you credit them with an entire minute per “contact” – which lets them even have a brief chat with their “clients,” that’s 6,770 minutes, or almost 113 hours. At $55,000 (the amount it got last year from the City), that’s a whopping $486.72/hour!
First of all, the number of contacts was 8350 according to your post. The 6770 was the number of PR residents. That would reflect multiple contacts in some cases. So if you really want to go with the picture you are painting that would equate to 139 hours and on to $395 per hour.
But if I put myself in the shoes of those who are involved in CoC, I go to be knowing you are not my target audience. My target audience are elected officials and people in PR who are “more in the middle”. The truth is you and those who think like you do not want CoC to receive any taxpayer funds period, ever, nada, nil, zippo bupkiss, the big goose egg!!! With that in mind, you will never be satisfied. This, of course is all fine…hell it’s a free country!!
That said, the idea that you would attach an average contact time of one minute for your math is funny to the extreme. I mean come on….1 minute?? It probably takes 5 min to do a blood pressure screening. Case worker meetings may tak 30 min…45…min…1 hour. Let’s say the average goes up to 10 min. The change in math get’s pretty dramatic. 8350 * 10 / 60 = 1391 hrs. 55000/1391 = $39.53
But the point is not so much whether my “WAG” is closer than yours. The point is that if you are willing to make those kind of assumptions about the value of their organization (1 min per contact) to make your case, you are not going to believe them anyway. If they were to provide total number of contacts and average time per contact and call loggs and yada…yada…yada….well of course these can be faked!! In this post you have basically accused them of stealing from the taxpayer at a rate of almost 500 per hour. Why on earth pretend that there is any information they could provide you that would make you feel beeter (they will not and should not provide you with names).
By the way, while I agree that many of the children in these senarios deserve a stern lecture and a great deal more…..lecturing the kids does not solve the problem.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Hey, it’s not us who can’t/won’t detail the specific numbers and kinds of services CofC allegedly provides to Park Ridge residents, and who can’t/won’t provide the actual hours of services rendered instead of hiding behind the weasel-wordy “contacts,” and who can’t/won’t provide any other info that would allow the City Council, assuming it gave a rat’s derriere, to make an informed decision about what it spent our $55K on last year, and what it wants to spend another $50K on this year. And it’s not us who doesn’t want to enter into a CONTRACT that would ensure that CofC received a specific price for each type and instance of service it provided Park Ridge residents.
THAT’s why we have accused CofC of being well short of honest, forthright and transparent with Park Ridge taxpayers, although if you want to call it “stealing” we won’t put up an argument. We have, however, added an “Update” to this post to correct our “wellness” per-call rate from $8.12 to $6.58 ea. for a rate of $394.80/hour service. Thanks for pointing that out.
Now you’re being ridiculous. This kind of demented, anal-retentive jabber calls into question the credibility of the many times when you are right on about government waste. What if the elderly had the misfortune not to have children? C’mon. Are we in this damned country together or all alone?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We think you’re pretty swell, too. And since you’re so concerned about all those unfortunate childless elderly in Park Ridge who desperately need $55K worth of those $6.58 “wellness calls” from CofC, how about stepping up to the plate and paying that $55K so City taxpayers won’t have to? C’mon, we’re in this damned country together, aren’t we?
it may come to that.
you’ve had worse ideas.
lemme work on it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We won’t be holding our breath – folks like you always talk the talk but never walk the walk, which is one reason CofC and some of these other organizations choose to put the arm on hapless aldermen for the money the taxpayers aren’t willing to contribute directly on their own.
Why not do the same math for those fire department guys who sit around in the fire house all day? Honestly. Or for lawyers who have nothing better to do than complain about EVERYTHING? Let’s just give the lawyers who have the time to Monday Morning Quarterback the entire government the list of the seniors…They can make the calls and then write them off as business expenses. We can write a contract (which the lawyers will charge us for!) so they can call seniors and sell them services (such as wills and trusts)! And if the senior doesn’t answer, the lawyers can call 911 and chase the ambulance to the scene. But FIRST, we need contracts…
EDITOR’S NOTE: Apples and rutabagas, since the firemen are employees of the City accountable to their City employee supervisors and, ultimately, to the City Council – while all these private community groups are not.
Why is it so difficult for CofC to sign a contract with the City, like any other vendor of services, to provide X hours/units of Y service(s) at Z dollars per hour/unit of service? Could it be because then it would have to actually identify what services it is providing at what cost? Or because then it couldn’t reap a financial windfall from Park Ridge taxpayers by providing Park Ridge residents with far less service value than what the City is paying for? Or perhaps because then it would be subject to competitive bidding against other vendors of those same services? How about all three?
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