This is Your City Budget - Part I
By Ron West
The following is an exchange I had with City Manager Cunningham in an effort to find the total sales tax revenue projected to the city for the 2004/05 Budget Year. It should be noted that this figure for prior years is very easy to find in the audit provided by an outside accounting firm. As you will see, the budget for our city is not presented for readership:
From: Ron West [mailto:rcw@ronwest.org]
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 2:42 PM
To: Larry Cunningham
Subject: Complaint: RE NRH Budget
Dear Mr. Cunningham,
I would like to file a formal complaint with the city regarding the
presentation of data within the 2004/05 Budget that is now
posted on the web. The complaint is that the data is presented in an
obscure format that is not consistent with the audit that is
also present on the website. Figures for projected total revenues for
sales taxes are an example. To determine this figure, you
must apparently review several different fund budgets and add the
various usage's together.
I would like to see the budget presented in a format similar to the
audit with figures presented for easy readership.
I wonder if it is necessary to file an Open Records Request to get
the real totals for projected sales taxes for 2004/05 or
can you provide this number to me?
Regards,
Ron C. West
817-938-1383
From: LCUNNINGHAM@nrhtx.com
Date: 2/2/2005 5:23 PM
To: rcw@ronwest.org
Mr. West, the sales tax revenue projections are provided in Schedules 2, 19, and 20 in accordance with the funds that they are specified to be accounted for. The 2004-05 estimated sales tax revenues are: General Fund sales tax revenues--Schedule 2, page 29--$8,204,423 Park & Recreation Dev sales tax revenues--Schedule 19, page 79--$4,061,595 Crime Control & Prevention District sales tax revenue--Schedule, page 83--$3,888,139 Funds and accounting of funds for various City revenues and expenditures are in accordance with and from the standards of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The budget and funds are prepared accordingly. I hope this information is helpful to you. Larry J. Cunningham
Please note that the total sales tax number is not presented anywhere in the budget as a single total item. To get the total you must look of page 29, page 79 and page 83. You can accurately assume that with this type of budgeting, finding actual information to analyze is most difficult.
Under a recent Texas Open Records request reply, I was advised of a $1.6 Million slush fund identified as miscellaneous expenses under a department budget. This is one of the sources for any random expenditures the city wishes to undertake such as the recent rules and goals meeting. While this doesn't sound like much, please remember that our street repair budget for the entire year is $600,000. Why would one department have a $1.6 Million slush fund?
Reading the budget is pretty boring and based on my own research, it surely seems as if it was too boring, convoluted and complicated for our council members to fully review. Page 53 of the 595 page document shows the development of the budget on a chart. This clearly shows a budget development plan that is under the absolute control of city employees long before the City Council is even in the picture. Since the City Council has announced support for "holding the rate" on property taxes, city employees can continue to spend ever more money without restraint. If cuts are suggested by staff, they are virtually always in services that will create public outrage and sympathy for higher taxes.
Wouldn't it be nice if our individual incomes could be increased at will to accommodate all the spending we wanted to do?