By Randy Kugler
Six weeks and still no response from the City on simple questions explaining the justification and use of Water Operating Funds transfers to the General Fund.
In one explanation the City Manager attempted to explain Material and Service expenses in budgeted Funds and stated “we process significantly more invoices to the tune of about 50% of all of the financial transactions that occur in the City are for the water department.”
Through a public records request I did a fact check of monthly “water department invoices” processed by City Hall staff and they are nowhere near 50% of the annual Material and Services transactions claimed by the City Manager. You can do a review of monthly bills for City services posted in past Council packets on the City website to confirm this exaggerated claim based on actual payments of the City’s monthly bill statements for the Water Operating Fund.
The City Manager states that there are material and service costs incurred by City Hall staff to support the Water Operating Fund that should be paid with water revenues. She described examples of these items as purchases of “a desk, computer, paper and so on”. I am still waiting on an answer as to how much paper and how many desks and computers were purchased out of the FY 2022/23 Budget to provide City Hall staff with these needed items for their support of the Water Operating Fund.
I noted that the City’s own overhead analysis claimed City Hall staff costs of $38,332 for the Public Safety Department (Police) compared to $168,350 for the Water Operating Fund. Given that these two services are very operationally similar with respect to number of employees, total operating budget, number of Agenda items submitted to Council and monthly bill payment activity, why such a large discrepancy in the overhead costs for City Hall staff assistance? No answer.
Let me suggest the answer that the City does not want to provide. There is no opportunity to transfer and collect indirect cost charges from the Public Safety Department for the General Fund because the Public Safety Department is already in the General Fund. There is however tremendous incentive to justify exaggerated or nonexistent efforts by City Hall staff to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars of Water Operating Fund monies to the General Fund that can then be spent for anything that the City wants.
When the City Manager’s claims fail any simple fact checks or common sense explanations, whether it involves nonexistent Council Agendas being managed by City Hall staff, exaggerated Water Operating Fund bill payment claims and unexplained purchases of desks, computers and paper, the Club’s response will be deny, ignore or invent new explanations.
The Washington Post’s Pinocchio Fact checker could find plenty of material to work with with these statements coming from Manzanita City Hall. When given the choice between transparency with citizens and protecting its own, the Club will always choose the latter.