A rather short council meeting was held on Tuesday, September 5, 2023, whose highlights were a discussion of raising the city manager’s ability to spend city funds without council supervision from its current limit of $25,000 to $100,000 and an update on the final quarter of the 2022/23 fiscal year budget.

Again, there was minimal public attendance at this meeting in which Councilman Thom Bogue was absent.  Two students, two members of the press, and the city treasurer were in the audience.

The increased spending limits were in two parts, one being for an increase generated by the State in its “City’s California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act” and the other a city restrictive limit on the city manager’s ability to enter purchase contracts on his own.  While the State limits were just an administrative adjustment to the existing municipal code, the council has the ability to say how small of a budgetary item they want to review before money is spent on it.

Public comment against the city manager increase were directed at a loss of transparency in that the expenditures would only be found in the lengthy enumeration of claims, councilman Jim Ernest stated he wanted to leave “non-budgeted” limits at $25,000 to which the city manager Jim Lindley responded that all non-budgeted expenditures had to come before the council, presumably on the consent calendar.  Lindley went further to say, “this is not taxpayer money, this is developer money”.

After reviewing the staff report on this item, there is no reference to budgeted or non-budgeted items.  There is also no language specifying that this is “developer money” rather than general fund money being used for “supplies, non-professional or professional services, and real estate purchases.”

Councilman Kevin Johnson asked that the two items be separated as there was little concern over the State limits.  He wanted all budgeted items to come before the council for review.  After Lindley stated this increase was mainly for expediency, the entire council gave in to that argument and voted to allow the higher limit with the condition of a generated report for expenditures from $25,000 to $100,000.

The blatant fault of holding public hearings in this manner, with arguments given after initial public comment, is that the public has no opportunity to respond to the staff’s flawed arguments.  While one individual mentioned the city of Bell, the important aspect missed is the oversight the council supposedly provides.  Lindley’s flawed point of “making an unsupervised purchase of seats for the council chamber at $85,000″, does not address the reality that he unilaterally has the ability to buy something worth a lot less or funnel contracts to acquaintances or friends.

The budget review was accepted with no public comment.  Projected reserves for this year are within $100,000 of last year but the reserve level has declined by 7% due to higher expenditures.  Another increase in expenditures is expected in this current fiscal year which will drive reserves below 40%.  Given that capital outlays represent less than 5% of budget expenditures, the council’s expressed appreciation to city staff for controlling spending of which 70% is on salaries and benefits may not find agreement among the general community.

A final item on giving a hiring bonus of $30,000 for qualified police sergeant candidates was addressed by one audience member as insufficient because it does little to keep police here because the council continues to insist on paying only the median salary for these positions.  Given the cost of recruitment it was suggested that upping salaries to a more competitive range would result in actual savings