City watchdog John Marshall Lee rarely sleeps when it comes to providing public officials his take on government accountability. He shares his Wednesday presentation to members of the city’s Charter Revision Commission.
OATs (Open, Accountable and Transparent Governance)
Open, accountable and transparent are three words that have been much used by government officials in recent years. Opinions may differ as to the exact meaning of each word and its application in a specific situation, but you know it when you see it. And I have used those words often in talking about Bridgeport governance.
• OPEN: I asked a finance official in a neighboring community to share practices regarding the MUNIS system. “Come on over in the afternoon, I can help you.” In our City the former leader of that same office was outraged by my audacity at contacting a City actuary (to inform him that one of his illustrations possibly had an error in it $9 Million to the red. It did and he appreciated my call.) But the Bridgeport official informed me that vendors don’t talk to the public. Contrast the behavior!
• The Mayor talks about “budget transparency” but if you look at the document the Charter calls for him to supply to the Council annually and public monthly, you know that it is not. And when the monthly reporting has not shared the closed full year budget detail for over 20 years, you really see where the secrets hide.
• Finally, fiscal accountability to the public is claimed but it is not possible to be practiced by our City Council Budget and Appropriations committee in any meaningful way. As a watchdog or “check and balance” they are not trained and have no experience receiving regular reports, getting more detail as needed and monitoring the administration on financial progress. And now I am only talking about the General Budget, ignoring Grants, Capital funding, and other non-major sources.
I approached your group early and often, but you were so focused on your mission to deliver more of the BOE process to Mayoral control that you did not address in any meaningful way the elephant in the room, and that is the deteriorating state of City finances amidst the structures and processes presently in place. Assuming you had been in even semi-regular attendance at Council and Committee meetings and reviewed the limited documentation available, I think that you would have acted more decisively on fiscal matters. Instead, we are left with:
• A Mayor who “shall provide” a budget document monthly by the fourth Friday of the following month according to the current Charter. In 2011 those reports were provided three times only. This year, monthly has had some meaning, but the March report was still not available on May 22 yesterday! How can the B&A do their work with no document and two members of B&A are here tonight and know this truth?
• The current Charter specifies two public meetings currently, one for the General budget and the other for the Capital budget, with language in the latter case indicating that the CC is to “solicit” comment from the public. That latter meeting has not been held in some time, if ever. Why not? And what about meetings where City representatives only listen and do not converse as part of the public record, especially if there are to be only two meetings per year? (I understand that CRC has broadened the sessions by adding quarterly fiscal reviews, but am not confident what exactly you had in mind.) Are your discussions on the subject available in your minutes for clarification?
• Your revisions identify an Internal Auditor (who has responsibilities under ordinances). That position has been unstaffed for more than four years now. It is an important position to protect the City from risk. What are practical consequences for failure to provide such an official?
• What consequences come to officials when they fail to live up to Charter and Ordinance language in general?
• And what was in your mind in augmenting the current language relative to the Office of Legislative Services where the City Council was unfunding both a ghost position and a real employee on May 7, 2012 in a vote where two or more City Council members did not realize they would be losing the current Legislative staffer. Open, accountable, transparent? And your language seems to speak to multiple potential staffers, serving at the CC President pleasure, and be “confidential employees.” Where is that defined? Will they serve at the pleasure of all CC members to provide legislative assistance as requested?
You have worked many hours and I have watched you at work, at discussion and listening to legal council. I am troubled that your group missed the elephant and that while the document seems easier to understand and perhaps may offer some more public meetings, it did not move to the missing board, a Finance Board, with expertise, staffing, and tenure built in as a vetting procedure to assist the Council who still would have the final vote, and that is their power.
I feel that we may need a monument in this City someday soon, especially if the City winds up in a surprise announcement, out of funds once again, with an audit revealing far more “news” than we ever wanted to know, and most of it adverse to us as responsible taxpayers. The monument will be the Tomb of the Unknown Taxpayer. Just like King TUT. When we got there the tomb was empty, but we will have to pay for the obligations that were never clear because governance was not open, not accountable and not transparent. Time will tell.
John Marshall Lee
30 Beacon Street
Bridgeport, CT 06605
*** Only thing you’ll get from city hall is false info and excuses covered by smoke & mirrors, no? ***
Did anyone read the op-ed from Paul Vallas this morning? Early in the essay he was unafraid to use those three words “open, accountable and transparent.” To me, that is a very good sign of things to come. Time will tell, for sure, but let me share a reason for optimism.
Several months ago I asked for an appointment with Chief Financial Officer Marlene Siegel, an experienced financial leader in seeking efficiencies in educational systems and helping those same transitions move from disorder (or chaos) into a planned, predictable and hopefully productive system.
A school-based budget model will be rolled out by Labor Day. It is in draft or testing use right now and provides considerable information on school population, positions allocated per “disciplined models” and actual staffing. A school budget with local decision-making as well as a “parent involvement allocation” is also in the works. You will be able to view many portions of this model and that is something heretofore unavailable in Bridgeport regarding education, if I have understood Ms. Siegel clearly. There will be a period in which changeover is taking place. Confusion will be evident. But to my mind, pushing some practical decision-making to a lower level than the Central Office makes good sense. And if it is in an OATs process, then oversight has been gained as well.
One example of “former practices” that will be changing based on a utilization study deals with “printers.” There are about 33 school sites in the City and over 1550 printers, creating a ratio of 1 machine to 1.36 teachers. There has been no real plan for acquisition, maintenance or utilization. Dollars will be currently saved by moving the ratio of 1 machine to 4 teachers with higher quality printing and less expense for toner, supplies and maintenance. Other systems have already moved to ratios of 1 to 8 or even 10 without education disruption after initial trials. Attempts to incorporate better practices starting with good planning, make them apply throughout the system with communication and training, and having the practices, models and processes create a feeling of trust, competency and fairness will go a long way to creating “buy in” from stakeholders.
As I write this I still have educational budget questions regarding 2011 expenses and budget balancing, 2012 actual variances, and 2013 items proposed and accepted. Still on the case, but seeing some positive signs of informed life taking shape for all of us, especially the young people. Read Vallas in the CT Post today for his perspective. Time will tell.
Projections and plans are just what they mean. They are not the reality of a situation. Have you heard our education system in the past was organized around theoretical numbers or numbers from a given date rather than around an actual count performed regularly? Just as we have talked about “ghost positions” or “ghost line items” there have apparently been phantom numbers used in the educational system that bore little relation to reality.
The spreadsheet I was shown briefly, still in development, will be able to model and monitor a disciplined policy for allocating personnel resources and making adjustments where necessary, keeping in mind fairness within the whole system. Regarding purchasing, I am not persuaded all resources have been committed already, since the school-based component of supply spending online is not fully operational.
I am not an expert on the education budget but I am following it more closely than before because it is possible to do so at this moment. That is a change in this City. And if you consider City taxpayer funds plus State ECS and other grants plus Federal entitlement grants and other competitive grants exceeds in dollar volume the monies spent on the City side from the General Fund (without the educational component), then I call that progress. Is Tom Sherwood willing to sit down and show us where all the money is spent, where it is transferred, what his paperwork looks like as he is handing it over to the external auditor? Why not? Why is he not assisting the Mayor in meeting the requirement of monthly reports 12 months of the year, timely? Time will tell.