NRH Budget Planning
Citizen Unfriendly
Addendum 7/31/05
by Ron West
I finally got a chance to attend a "budget planning workshop" for NRH. It wasn't held in NRH, rather, it was held at Garrett Creek Ranch which is about 5 miles off of any highway near Paradise, Texas. The meeting room was set up for 20 people including the Mayor, Council members and city employees. There was no microphones or amplifiers so that hearing all comments was truly challenging or almost impossible for visitors. Handouts were provided only to city staffers and council so as an observer, there was little information - other than slides - to actually see what was being discussed. A video recording was made of much of the meeting showing just how poor acoustics were.
The meeting was attended by Ken Sapp, Tim Barth, Nicholas Bielik and myself as outside observers. Diane Smith of the Star Telegram arrived a little late but then received special attention and handouts from Mary Edwards, the city's public information officer. This worked for the city with an article in the Saturday Star Telegram headlined "North Richland Hills Council plans to cut spending to balance budget". While that would be nice - it is just not fact. In reality, the new budget increases spending across the board with higher revenues from virtually all sources except sales tax. The spending cuts were to excessive wish lists rather than the prior years budget. Spending in NRH, is going up, just like it has for the past 13 years - and again - much faster than population. Actual numbers from my notes indicates a decline in sales tax revenue forecast in the amount of $482,198 with an initial projection of $762,052 increase in property tax revenue. There may be another $200,000 or so increase in property taxes that was just "discovered" a day or so before the meeting but that additional amount was immediately budgeted to increasing the General Fund Reserve. No one asked how much money was already in this "reserve". Since reserves are interest bearing - the city can use your money better than you can.
Council members were provided printed copies of the budget information that had been prepared by city staffers. One council member at least had requested a copy of the electronic data used to prepare the hard copies but it was not provided prior to this meeting. As part of the mantra of closed government, easily readable and usable information is difficult to come by. The electronic copies of the data were used to prepare the printed copies for the council members but council members were denied the electronic copies for some reason known only to Mr. Cunningham and maybe the mayor.
The kick off for the meeting on Friday morning was an initial presentation by Trevino & Cunningham based on very negative facets of economy without mention of any positive growth factors in revenue. They focused heavily on the projected decline in sales tax revenue but said nothing about the $200,000,000 in new property valuation for the city. At one point that was recorded, there were some questions about businesses leaving the city. I was kind of shocked to hear the council members essentially blaming folks they called "stupid" or "under funded" business owners for all the ills of small business in our city. One member of the group stated that the city was not to blame for the shrinkage in sales tax revenue. Revitalization was identified as the key to attracting more business and is the solution to all the money problems.
There was also a discussion of the "wealthy individuals" who lived near Ms. Johnson but were not spending their money in NRH. The Grapevine Highway "study" is supposed to attract business to the south area near this neighborhood so the residents there will spend all their money in NRH - obviously with the goal of increasing sales taxes for the council to spend. Revitalization by spending was the keynote of meeting. This was stated for both NRH and the local school district relating to the upcoming bond election. (Since population growth in the city falls far behind spending, the same logic is now being applied in the BISD School District with flat attendance figures. The answer is spend or borrow more money to build fancy new schools to attract more citizens to the area and thereby increase taxes for further spending.)
It is interesting to note that throughout the morning session a number of "barbs" were aimed at this website and my comments. Comments from the Mayor calling it the work of a "gadfly that no one listens to" were part of the kick off. Great offense was taken because of my calling the "Non-Departmental Budgets" slush funds. The very use of the term according to Trevino and Cunningham implied corruption. I suppose they can imply whatever they like but the thrust of my articles has been at getting full disclosure on where this money was going. During the meeting, there were two handouts relating to the General Fund Non-Departmental Budget - which is being INCREASED for 2005/06. I expect to be able to publish this information when I receive a copy shortly. There was what appears to be a full answer on the ambulance bad debt write off portion of this budget account. Many questions remain to be answered on what I still call "slush funds".
At several points during the morning session, the comments of what the council called "disturbed", "disgruntled", "lying" citizen(s) and or websites was discussed along with statements by the Mayor that it was not going to be "allowed" in the future and they were going to do something about it. Ms. Johnson urged council members to stand together to defend themselves and their integrity. She was the one who called criticism the work of a "disturbed citizen" who questioned the integrity of the council. Since I suppose she was referring to comments from this website, I would have to say that while I am not "disturbed" in the context of Ms. Johnson's comments, suggesting mental incapacity, I am disturbed about the actions of this council. It would seem that many citizens would take note of the four recently elected council people who violated their own sign ordinance on election day. Or maybe they should take note of the deliberately misleading information published by the Star Telegram in a letter from the Mayor - which has neither been recanted or denied. Integrity would imply elected officials who truthfully serve the citizens and respect the laws. Unfortunately, we seem to have neither in NRH.
Ms. Johnson made a number of comments in the first morning session that sounded remarkably like campaign speeches to justify continuing high taxes, continued building of the "reserves" and all spending requests. Note that the bigger the reserves, the bigger the interest payments to the city that are used for increased spending. Interest on your money paid into reserves is always spent rather than considered for tax abatement. Ms. Johnson also made a comment about the "stupid, ignorant remarks" of citizens and said they would not be made if they attended some of the meetings. Ms. Johnson also claimed to be elected by 60,000 people.
One of the few interesting questions about spending related to open records requests. I believe that the consensus reached was that while the council didn't like them, they were mandated by law and were just a cost of doing business as a city. The need for open records requests would diminish greatly if we had open government in our city but that was not discussed at all.
By 1:45 PM - the entire general fund budget was cast in concrete with a "consensus" of all council members. The tax rate for next year will be $.57 per $100 valuation, no citizen input will really be considered even though there are two required hearings mandated by new state law. These hearings are triggered because of the taxation increases realized by "holding the rate". While I would certainly encourage any interested citizens to speak before the council, I would also suggest that such speaking may be met with the same disregard that is aimed at anyone who would dare to criticize or question this elite group. The only real message they would hear would have to happen at the ballot box and they still think everyone is asleep or totally disinterested. To help maintain this disinterest - the Garrett Ranch location for this meeting truly helped.
Budget meetings without handouts or adequate information to follow along are meaningless exercises for citizens in NRH. Carefully orchestrated handouts to the Star Telegram present only the information that the city wants them to have. (The proper spin.)
The message I heard loud and clear was "Forget property tax relief - we will spend all monies regardless!" Spending is always justified for all available revenues. The consensus for approval of the $.57 tax rate and the increased general fund spending was unanimous. There were also even some suggestions for how to squeeze additional taxes for business signs in the city and new revenues from making landlords responsible for delinquent utility bills from tenants before allowing them to rent to new tenants.
NRH - Business and Citizen Unfriendly!
Addendum - 7/31/05
A column by Ken Sapp has been published in Local News Only trying to discredit me and this article. Mr. Sapp was not privy to the "documents" that Cunningham released and therefore has had no time to analyze them for content. This site has been attempting to get Cunningham to release a complete disclosure of the disbursement of ALL the money budgeted in the "Non-Departmental" budgets for the General Fund and the Utility Fund that I identify as "slush funds". The council members were given a 595+/- page printed copy of the proposed budget and then handed a 4 or 5 page change relating to the General Fund Budget the first morning of the workshop. While I do agree that some of them had attempted to review this document, I would challenge anyone to thoroughly analyze such a document in 7 days (on a part time basis). The city manager and mayor knows that this is a virtually impossible task. While an electronic copy was requested by one council member (at least) the electronic version of the budget that could be analyzed more quickly and completely was not released. Please note that it does exist and was used to print the hard copy delivered to the council members. It took less than 5 hours to get the consensus to set the tax rate raising taxes again along with approval of all General Fund expenditures.
The budget process in our city is closed and simple. It is designed to spend all available projected revenues and it is not open to public scrutiny. This years budget will probably exceed $80 Million Dollars. One and 1/2 days of "council examination" does not appear to be adequate to serve public needs particularly with the reluctance of city management to release supporting electronic copies for examination.
Finally, as I identified in earlier articles, the name calling - such as "prolific gadfly" is just a part of the campaigning that is going on very early for the 2005 Mayoral and Council race. I am not and will not be a candidate. I am over 65 so my homestead taxes are frozen. The fight for budget restraint that affects the majority of our citizens is an uphill battle against an entrenched elitist clique. Your voice needs to be heard if you are concerned. If you stay quiet as the majority on this council want you to do, you may wake up to find that not only are they taking your property and money with excessive spending and taxation, they want to take away your right to free speech.
Remember that the four recently elected council members deliberately violated their own obnoxious sign ordinance on election day to try to get your vote. The next campaign will probably be even dirtier than the one we just completed with Trevino running again.
If this type of activity by the city upsets you, then anyone who runs against the establishment will need your help. If you want to stop runaway spending and closed government, send me an email and I will add your name to a list of "volunteers". The list so developed will be given to any challengers who enter the fray next year against the incumbents and they will then know who is willing to help them retire Trevino and Johnson. Click here to send your email! The mayor is said to already have 50 volunteers recruited for his re-election.
Ken Sapp writes on behalf of our Mayor, the City Manager and the majority of the council. Examine carefully his words, comments and facts.