City Continues Down Same Path On Water Rates – Biased Financial Analysis Attempted
The Water Rate Advisory Committee meeting proved how statistics can be made to lie. Finance director Kate Zawadski presented only half of the staff report on the water system financials, that of the accounting balances in four separate funds, to illustrate the supposed dire financial condition of the city run water system.
Left out was the staff report on yearly revenues versus expenses which tells quite a different story depending on a person’s expertise in digesting this material. While Zawadski claims that the system had an “operational loss” in every year, the truth of the matter is depreciation, a non-cash expenditure which is an accounting tool for tax purposes and which does not reflect the true replacement cost of the assets involved, was the “expense” driving these losses.
