I have attended many Lompoc city budget hearings over the last two decades, and one thing that amazed me was how department heads and whoever happens to be elected to the City Council at the time determine how much to budget for each function without any real justification.
One example of how much analysis went into the budget process was a discussion of how much time a particular staff member spent performing a specific function; during the public workshop the council raised it by 20 percent or without any analysis of past costs or any real justification for the staff task time increases just because everyone thought it was a good idea!
Another was how the budget for the Facilities Services and Maintenance department, which is responsible to “provide timely, cost effective, efficient and competent maintenance and repair of city facilities,” was approved.
In the last two-year budget it requested a little over $1 million to buy some equipment and repair things. Although its $1 million equipment and repair budget was zeroed out, its $1.8 million personnel and expendable supply budget was approved. So, you have to ask yourself: What did they do if they had staff hours but no equipment or repair materials to work with?
There didn’t seem to be any logic for many of the cost estimates in the budget; just broad-brush statements like “reduce workers compensation dollars by 5 percent” or to “ensure City Council agendas and staff reports are posted on the City’s website no later than 11 days prior to the City Council meeting” — a goal that is rarely met with staff reports and complete agendas sometimes being posted late on Friday before the Tuesday meeting.
To make matters worse, there were no performance metrics or audits to see if any of these fuzzy budget goals were met. Knowing how much staff time it takes to do each task and how much you spend on materials are the most essential pieces of information needed to prepare a budget.
In each program area of the budget there are goals, performance areas and specific objectives but there are no detailed cost breakdowns for each function, just position equivalents. For example how long does it take to restripe a crosswalk, how many people does it take to do it and how many crosswalks will be painted during the budget period? These sorts of significant time consuming tasks were rolled up into one line item — street maintenance.
I worked for federal government contractors for many years and participated in the bidding preparations for many multi-million dollar contracts. I will assure you that if we had used this same methodology it would have been dismissed by senior management and the customer as being unresponsive.
In federal contract work a basis of estimate worksheet is prepared for each function. The customer would define the scope of the work that they wanted done and then we identified specific regulatory requirements, use military standards to justify each tenth of an hour (6 minutes) of effort needed and provided estimates of material costs required to perform the job.
Each function had a unique set of identifiers, or charge numbers, for each specific task. As we worked on the task our time cards reflected what we were doing. The customer and our management team routinely audited the time and material charges against each function to assure that we remained within the budget; then when it was time to renegotiate the contract these numbers were carefully analyzed and the scope of the next contract was modified as required.
The city has many functions to perform – operating and maintaining the infrastructure, picking up the trash, sweeping the streets, police and fire protection are among the more readily identifiable tasks. Less apparent to the public are all of the regulatory requirements that must be satisfied by preparing compliance reports that are then sent to other government agencies. Then of course there are those pesky “unfunded mandates” from Sacramento.
While fire protection and police staffing are directly related to the minimum staffing levels and federal grant requirements that are provided to the city, other departments aren’t operated the same way.
The way the city prepares its budget and spends our tax dollars needs an overhaul. A more detailed cost breakdown needs to be provided to council members so that they can make informed decisions.
The past was an example of sloppy governance at its worst and I hope that this era has passed.
Budget hearings will start soon; first some workshops and then before June 30 a budget will be presented to the council. Hopefully the city administrator has brought a new budget philosophy with him that embraces a better method for determining how much time and money is needed for each function and then incorporates a means to measure progress as the two year budget cycle unfolds.
Lompoc needs to move out of the back-of-the-envelope budgeting methodology of the past and adopt sound budgeting principles.
Taxpayers will have to remain vigilant as the next two-year budget is developed.
— Ron Fink, a Lompoc resident since 1975, is retired from the aerospace industry and has been active with Lompoc municipal government commissions and committee since 1992, including 12 years on the Lompoc Planning Commission. He is also a voting member of the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association. Contact him at news@noozhawk.com. The opinions expressed are his own.
