Ian McCann, in The Dallas Morning News Richardson blog, does as good a job as possible presenting the City of Richardson's case for a new utility fee to pay for projects related to storm water drainage. Unfortunately, the explanation just doesn't hold up.
In short, Richardson has been paying for drainage-related operations out of the general fund. Because "greater obligations are looming in the future," the city council wants to create a dedicated fee for such operations, presumably to raise more money to pay for these greater obligations.
On the surface, it sounds straightforward, but follow the money and it begins to look like a shell game. It looks like a way for Mayor Gary Slagel to finance a new "redevelopment fund" by imposing a new storm water drainage utility fee. With a new utility fee in place, there will be $1 million in the general fund no longer needed to pay for storm-related operations. Instead of reducing the tax rate a like amount, mayor Gary Slagel proposes keeping the tax rate and putting the million dollars into a "redevelopment fund" that McCann describes as "more fuzzy than the utility spending itself." The net result? Richardson residents will be paying, on average, $3.50 more per month and the council will have a million dollar redevelopment fund to disperse.
No wonder the topic was saved for the last item on a long night's budget session agenda. No wonder the utility fee is being left out of the budget. Look, I'm inclined to support a dedicated storm water utility fee. It's good for residents to see exactly how much they are paying for what. I'm also inclined to support a redevelopment fund. Richardson needs significant redevelopment, especially in the Coit/Spring Valley area and along the southern part of Central Expressway. What I'm not comfortable with is how the city council is selling this to the residents of Richardson. The juggling of fees and funds may be a necessary, if messy, part of any budget-making process. But sleight of hand shouldn't be part of it.
26 comments:
How about the slippery practice of throwing the kitchen sink that will never be purchased into the budget as a dollar place keeper, only to later be shuffled off to another purpose without the obligatory Resolution to modify the budget accordingly. Projects and capital item estimates are inflated in the budget so management can have plenty of wiggle room without blowing the budget bottom line at year's end. Actual cost of budget items routinely come in under budget. Then council has "surplus" budget amounts that has been customarily used as slush funds. It's the same deal as the new drainage deal. Voodoo accounting.
"Anonymous" at 7/30/2009 11:09 PM, thanks for the feedback. Your charge of "slush funds" lacks the specificity needed for anyone to rebut. It's unfair.
Even with good faith budgeting, some items will come in under budget, other items over budget. As long as the amounts are small and the shuffling of money is transparent, I have no problem with it.
Right on, Ed. This just doesn't pass the smell test. Why did Slagel put this item on at the end of the agenda? The obvious answer is that, at 10:30 p.m., he knew the room would be about empty - which I hear it was. And, honestly, just call this drainage fee what it is, simply a redevelopment tax.
Although many may call this Slagel's "slush fund" for him to dole out to his favorite developers, I won't go that far for now. However, with the everpresent ethical clouds hanging over Slagel's head, I am not sure that creating this redevelopment fund isn't a case of the "rooster gaurding the hen house."
barb, thanks for the feedback. I suspect you are pretty close to the mark.
I've responded to this on the Echo Chamber blog.
http://www.richardsonecho.com/Blog/tabid/142/Default.aspx
Andrew
Andrew Laska, thanks for the feedback. You do a good job of defending the redevelopment fund (which I said I'm inclined to support, too), but you didn't address my criticism of how it's being sold to the Richardson residents. Simply put, there is no "freed up" money available for redevelopment. Creating a separate utility fee doesn't free up anything. Richardson residents still have to pay a million dollars for storm water drainage. Now, instead of paying their million dollars into the general fund through their property taxes and sales taxes, they'll be paying that same million dollars into a storm water drainage fund through a new utility fee. Those same residents will have to dig deeper now to pay another million dollars into the general fund to pay for a new redevelopment program. Redevelopment may be needed (I think so) but it ought to be sold on its own merits, not slip into the budget by saying it's "freed up" money. That's sleight of hand.
I'd be happy to discuss any productive commentary over on The Echo.
Andrew
I am puzzled, Ed. You asked me to see your responses to my posts on the "Gary's Diner" thread in this thread...and I don't see any responses here to the issues I raised.
Ed, the only comments from you that I see here are you indicating your concern about creating a new tax rather than just shifting money from one pot to another. I have already agreed that 'what to do' with the alleged $1 million is fair game for discussion, since, after all, the Council could just give it back to the public in the form of a tax reduction.
However, my comments in the other thread were not disputing that, but were taking issue with the way you represented things. You made several statements (which I listed in the other thread) implying that the Council was up to no good, but these statements were not supported by your source - indeed, you had to ignore things from your source to come to this conclusion.
That's my problem with your discussion - you appear to have reached the conclusion that the Council is trying to pull a fast one and are manipulating the data (which you admit you have second hand) to support that conclusion. That's the wrong way to go at it, especially since Ian directly addressed several of your questions even before you wrote them.
Ed, let's stick to the legitimate questions of
1. Should we have a Municipal Drainage Utility at all?
2. If we do, what do we do with the perhaps $1 million in the general fund that no longer needs to be spent on drainage issues?
Adding editorial opinions in medias res when your own source does not support them does not add value to the discussion...
Bill
William J. 'Bill' McCalpin, thanks for the feedback you provided on the blog post, "Dinner at Gary's". I'm responding here because it's the more appropriate blog topic.
I take exception to the charge that I misquoted Ian McCann.
The word "presumably" is *not* "designed to suggest that some other plans may be afoot." I said "presumably" simply because the reason why Richardson is considering a separate storm water drainage utility fee did not have a single unambiguous answer. In response to that question, we learned that other cities have such a fee. We learned that greater obligations are looming in the future. Neither reason forces Richardson to go to a utility fee. Because no other reasons were stated, then, presumably, there is no forcing function. Presumably, it's a voluntary decision on the council's part. That wasn't stated explicitly. It is a presumption on my part, so I said "presumably". I try not to state presumptions as fact.
The explanation that the utility fee is complicated strikes me as a reason why it should be discussed, in length and in detail, not why it should be made the last item on the agenda. Even though it's premature to include it in this year's budget, it could have a very significant impact on this year's budget (McCann's article says the new fee could be coming by January). So, even though the utility fee is not set in stone, anything with such an impact on the budget should be thoroughly discussed before this year's budget itself is set in stone.
Finally, in the last paragraph of your response, you say, "maybe the alleged $1 million should be returned to the people in the form of a tax cut." Yes, maybe it should. Then, if a redevelopment fund is worthwhile, it can be discussed separately, instead of having it appear that there is already money available, money "freed up" from instituting a new utility fee.
William J. 'Bill' McCalpin, you say,
"Ed, let's stick to the legitimate questions of
1. Should we have a Municipal Drainage Utility at all?
2. If we do, what do we do with the perhaps $1 million in the general fund that no longer needs to be spent on drainage issues?"
Fully agree. And if the council had separated those two questions, we wouldn't be having this discussion on this blog today.
Ed, I respect that you take exception to my first statement. However, look at what you said - "Because "greater obligations are looming in the future," the city council wants to create a dedicated fee for such operations, presumably to raise more money to pay for these greater obligations."
If you parse the sentence, the only reason that someone would have interjected "presumably" into the middle of that sentence would be to suggest that the city council might have some other motive to create the dedicated fee.
We speak to a broad audience here, some of whom are in favor of the people that run the City, some of whom are quite opposed, and some of whom who really don't know what to think. Thus we must be very careful in how we word things, because we have multiple audiences. If you did not mean to imply that the City Council had some agenda other than the spend the drainage fee only on drainage things, then I suggest that the people who are virulently opposed (for right or wrong) to the current administration would have read this statement as a snide comment questioning what the City was up to...something that your further statements would have encouraged. Indeed, there were such comments shortly after your posting.
Ian did not suggest that there was any doubt about what the fee was for, the State enabling legislation does not leave any doubt what the money would be used for, and since you did not attend that portion of the budget session (to hear anything different), you can have no personal reason to doubt that the "the city council wants to create a dedicated fee for such operations...to raise more money to pay for these greater obligations."
To put it another way, ask yourself "why else would the Council create a Municipal Drainage Utility and impose a fee?" You may question whether the fee associated with this system is necessary , but you shouldn't question what the fee would be used for which is what "presumably" does...well, this may be like the hearsay thing...maybe you should consult an disinterested third party and ask them what your phraseology sounds like to them...
As for a more thorough discussion of the fee, well, of course, we're gong to have a more thorough discussion - the State's enabling legislation requires a public hearing at least 30 days in advance, and as Andrew Laska has pointed out in the Richardson Echo, the City staff has actually addressed this issue several times in public meetings over the last year or two.
As I noted before, if you had attended budget workshops in the past (as I have), you would realize that their agenda is not the same as individual workshops - the Council discusses the budget for up to 4 days, and there's no real way of knowing where an individual agenda item may fall, because of not knowing how long staff and Council members may talk about this or that item. You may choose to think of this as some sort of conspiracy, but, honestly, you are reading something into it that just isn't there.
As I said, you have a great deal of power in how you use words, and it is incumbent upon all of us who write to use those words wisely. As you know, there are plenty of people in Richardson who have been conditioned to think the worst of our City government, even if often for no good reason, and we do the City a disservice when we feed their paranoia through impolitic speech, er, writing.
Now, let's get on to the real discussion(!)...
Bill
William J. 'Bill' McCalpin, I respectfully disagree that "the only [emphasis added] reason that someone would have interjected 'presumably' into the middle of that sentence would be to suggest that the city council might have some other motive to create the dedicated fee." I already explained why I said presumably and it wasn't for the reason you believe. You can choose to believe me or not.
I never implied that the city of Richardson wouldn't spend as much money on storm water drainage management as the new utility fee raises, as required by state law. If you inferred that, you were reading something into my post that isn't there. Maybe because of my poor writing skills. Maybe because you question my motives. Maybe something else. Regardless, I have always believed that Richardson will follow state law.
The math seems pretty simple to me. Currently, the city raises a million dollars (more or less) and for that money we get storm water management. After the new utility fee is in place, the city will raise two million dollars (the old taxes plus new fee) and for that money we'll get storm water management and a redevelopment fund. To my simple way of looking at things, the extra million dollars is buying a redevelopment fund. Maybe it's justified. But let's just be up front that it's an extra million dollars out of Richardson residents' pockets for a redevelopment fund.
Well, Ed, I see that you can't see how the phrasing sounds from another point of view - whether or not you meant to imply that some drainage fee funds would not go to pay for drainage services, many people might reasonably infer from your phrasing that that's what you intended by inserting that adverb. I see your explanation, but we disagree on how your phrase sounds to the average person in colloquial English. Well, no matter...
Bill
"To my simple way of looking at things, the extra million dollars is buying a redevelopment fund. "
I think we are still at the stage of "if we do the Municipal Drainage Utility, we might have some unused money in the General Fund, so what could we do with it?" This is a different emphasis - that perhaps I misinterpret from your postings - from " 'they' have already made up their minds to not only charge the fee and free up the $1 million but they're going to spend it on X."
As I was in Canada that last evening of the budget workshops, I couldn't attend, but my wife did, and this is how she heard the conversation (from her written notes - note that the text in brackets are our editorial insertions for clarification):
(Someone) - "If we do this drainage thing, how much money would we save from the general fund?"
Dan Johnson - "Uh, maybe $1 million, although we don’t have the final numbers on that."
(In the minds of everyone) - "Gee, I wonder what we could do with that million dollars?"
Gary Slagel – "I think we ought to use this money to invest in redevelopment such as in the Spring Valley area."
Amir Omar – "I'm not opposed to that, but can we apply this to improvements?"
Bob Macy – "I support that [spending on Spring Valley redevelopment]."
Steve Mitchell – "I want to make sure that there is still plenty of money for drainage work."
City staff reply – "We would now have an estimated $2.3 million for drainage work as compared to the $1 million that we currently spend, which means that even if we spend all of the $1 million on something else, we will still have more money than ever to spend on drainage system work."
Steve Mitchell – "Good."
John Murphy - "Let's tie whatever we do to our vision [for areas like Spring Valley]. Let's don't let ourselves be seen as just a funding source for developers. Besides, we ought to do a 5 year phase in because we are still learning of new obligations that the City will have on the drainage network."
Bob Townsend – "Why don't we spend this money on streets and alley improvements?"
Gary Slagel – "We aren't allowed to spend that money on streets but maybe we can apply it also to the drainage system [which can be related, since when streets are replaced, drain pipes under the streets that have reached end-of-life get replaced before the new street is laid]."
Whereupon there was a discussion of "improvement" versus "redevelopment". "Improvement" would be upgrading or repairing a street or alley; "redevelopment" would be taking actions that would encourage developers without simply appearing to be a money bank for them. For example, tearing down derelict apartment complexes and making a green space is not only much better for the neighborhoods over leaving a boarded up building behind a chain link fence, but when we get to the point of having some contiguous green space, this gives developers a better playing field in which to propose new uses based on replatting.
This wasn't a "we're-about-to-make-a-decision" discussion, this was a "what-if" discussion. Gary and John were talking about "redevelopment"; Amir and Bob T. were talking about "improvements"; Steve wanted to make sure that there would be more money for drainage, not less; and Bob M. was generally supportive of using the money wisely.
Does this sound like a Council that has secretly decided to spend this money a certain way and is using "sleight of hand" to sneak it past the voters? No, it sounds just like a Council that has publicly talked about the issue in general terms several times before, and now that an actual up/down vote may be getting closer, they are starting to wrestle with the consequences of a new Municipal Drainage Utility - which they will continue to do in public just as they have all along...
Bill
William J. 'Bill' McCalpin, you ask, "Does this sound like a Council that has secretly decided to spend this money a certain way and is using 'sleight of hand' to sneak it past the voters?"
It sounds to me like a city council that's acting like a kid in a candy store trying to decide what he should buy with that dollar in his hand. It does not sound like a kid trying to decide what to say to his parents to get the dollar for a trip to the candy store in the first place.
Ed, I agree that the City Council - one and all - seemed interested in discussing what to do with the money, and I understand your analogy that they ought to think about asking for the money first before they spend it - and, of course, they will ask the citizenry for their thoughts and input through the various public presentations including at least one public hearing.
My problem is characterizations like "sleight of hand", "shell game", "no wonder [this]", and "no wonder [that]" as if they're up to no good...if you think that they should talk about getting approval from the voters first before talking about what to do with the extra money, then you could have just said so in your initial posting, e.g.,
"The Cart Before the Horse in Budget Making Ian McCann, in The Dallas Morning News Richardson blog, does as good a job as possible presenting the City of Richardson's case for a new utility fee to pay for projects related to storm water drainage.
However, the Council seems more interested in talking about how to spend the money before they have even had the public hearing(s) on whether to create the Municipal Drainage Utility in the first place, whose creation would free up money from the General Fund for other uses.
While it's understandable that they - somewhat like a kid in the candy store who might be more interested in trying to decide what candy he might buy with that dollar in his hand than in deciding what to say to his parents to get the dollar for a trip to the candy store in the first place - still, I would appreciate more discussion on whether we're going to do this before we get too far down the road on how we're going to spend the "new found" money."
You see? It says exactly what you want, without "sleight of hand" or "shell games" or other negative innuendos that people are bound to take the wrong way...
Bill
William J. 'Bill' McCalpin, thank you for your editorial rewrite of my blog post. You capture well my criticism that the council is putting the cart before the horse by debating how to spend money before asking citizens whether they are willing to increase their taxes or fees to provide the money in the first place. But what your rewrite doesn't explain is the motivation for such behavior. I still think that sleight of hand and shell game are the most likely characterizations of what our politicians are up to. Nothing you've said, nothing Ian McCann has said, nothing anyone on the council has said, has led me to believe otherwise. I would very much like to be proven wrong.
Ed, I can't prove you wrong when you have already closed your mind to the evidence...to paraphrase you, "[n]othing I've said, nothing Ian McCann has said, [and] nothing anyone on the council has said" has actually given you any reason to believe "that sleight of hand and shell game are the most likely characterizations of what our politicians are up to".
In our society, you are innocent until proven guilty, not vice-versa. But you have declared the Council guilty, while not showing us any facts to support your position. Indeed, all the evidence and eyewitness testimony that we have discussed leads to the exact opposite conclusion: that there has been nothing untoward in the process other than your preference that they talk about the presenting and passing the Municipal Drainage Utility first before they started spending the money in their heads.
On the contrary, rather than me having to prove their innocence because you a priori assume that they are guilty, I call upon you to provide any evidence that they are guilty of "sleight of hand" and "shell games". Do you have an eyewitness that caught Council members discussing how they were trying to deceive the public? Do you have any incriminating documents to support your claim? Have you caught the Council members in a contradiction that would cast doubt on their behavior in this process? Do you have any positive proof that any wrong has been done by anyone at all?
Misunderstanding how the budget workshop process works on your part does not constitute proof of guilt on anyone else's part. Assuming guilt instead of innocence in the face of zero evidence does not give bias a good name...
Bill
William J. 'Bill' McCalpin, I'm always open to new evidence. In the meantime, I'll post my best explanations for the facts that are available. I've never claimed that my explanations are facts themselves. You are welcome to your own explanations. Readers can decide for themselves which they find more credible.
By the way, this isn't a court of law. No one is being accused of illegal activity here. There is no requirement for me, or anyone else, to assume noble motives of politicians or anyone else until proven otherwise. To my way of thinking, voters ought to be skeptical of politicians and government in general until they prove themselves worthy of our trust. The burden of proof falls on them. Again, you're welcome to approach politics in a different manner.
Amazing dialogue Ed!!!! It is truly commendable that you continued to engage someone who is unwilling to listen to anything.
There is no right answer here, but I would add why the interest in finding more redevelopment dollars when we have this wonderful and very large TIF zone as an enticement? Seems the last TIF board meeting was Feb of this year. What happened?
One of the most amazing parts of our council and their presentations is that "It always leads to tons more questions". And here I was looking for some answers and a level of undersatanding. (That's blatant sarcasm!) Follow the dollars through the documents and you always find the truth!
"Anonymous" at 8/04/2009 11:32 PM, I'll always respond if people keep it civil, intelligent and don't repeat themselves.
As for the limitations of TIF, yes, that's a worthy issue to discuss. I don't know how many incentives developers need, but Spring Valley/Coit area is still blighted, so obviously they need something more than they see on the table today.
"It is truly commendable that you continued to engage someone who is unwilling to listen to anything."
I also commend Ed for being reasonable (most of the time ;-) ), but the bravely anonymous statement that I (assuming you were talking about me) am unwilling to listen to anything is proven clearly untrue by the discussion above.
After all, I agreed from the get-go that it is perfectly legitimate to discuss how the alleged $1 million should be spent, or even spent at all (i.e., returned to the taxpayer), which I believe was the eventual point that Ed wished to make. The issues I was disputing were other, but I see you (Mr./Ms. Brave Anonymous Person) missed those points completely...no point in bringing it up again.
Bill
"... eventual point that Ed wished to make."
I believe I made my point in my original post. Raising a million dollars for a redevelopment fund, not by raising taxes for it or by imposing some kind of fee whose revenue is dedicated to redevelopment, but by imposing a new utility fee, then using the money "freed up" in the general fund for redevelopment, is sleight of hand budgeting.
Can you really raise funds in one area of the budget, like water/sewer and spend the funds for something entirely different, like redevelopment? How does that work? Seems that is questionable.
Mr B, try as I may, it appears you seem to think that there is only one answer to everything. Based on what I have read by your long winded responses to everything. What if you are wrong sometimes? You make it very difficult to find the credibility in your opinions when you carry on this way.
And Ed is anonymous, so why the tacky statements like "bravely anonymous person"? Sorry everyone, that will probably prompt a looooonnnnnggggggg justification cause it seems Mr B needs to be right about everything. :-(
"Anonymous" at 8/07/2009 8:57 AM, money raised by a new utility fee cannot be used for other purposes. It's the money that will still be raised in the general fund, money that used be spent on storm water operations, that will now be available to be spent on redevelopment.
No, Mr./Ms. Bravely Anonymous Person, I engage in open discussion under my own name because I respect this forum and feel that all sides that bring facts to the table get a fair hearing.
That's why I make a point of utilizing the capability here to add URLs (hypertext links) so that the readers here can do their own research. Do you?
Your only 'fact' is that I am long-winded...are you kidding us? That's the best you can do? No wonder you remain anonymous.
Bill
Post a Comment