Budgets & small-time governments question

[JonInMiddleGA]

Just looking for a little feedback on something, checking to see if I'm really too tired to be thinking at this point or if I'm right & I'm just seeing more evidence of what whack jobs we've got in local county government around here.

2004 budget was balanced, $7.6 million projected revenues & expenditures.
Recently completed audit indicates that spending exceeded budget by $13,000.
By my math, using a calculator & a tired brain, I show that as being 0.17% over budget. Not 17%, not 1.7%, but point-17 percent, as in less than one-fifth of one percent off target.

1) Am I just nuts, or is my math right?
2) Is it just me, or is hitting something within one-fifth of one percent pretty damned good for government work, or with amounts of this size, very well within the range of reasonability?

The whole subject came up at all because a leading malcontent (bitter old CPA who never forgave the world for not recognizing her brilliance as fully as she did herself) & the county commission chairman (a Palpatine wanna-be) are both decrying the findings (publically & privately) of the audit as something akin to the end of the world as we know it, using words like "crisis", "financial disaster", etc. I'm not a fan of either of them (obviously) nor do I have any love lost at all for the previous panel that they're trying to blame. Does anybody else see any reason for panic in a $13,000 overage in a $7.6 million budget?

[Peregrine]

Sounds pretty good to me, I think most county governments would be pretty damned happy to be that close to the mark. What's amazing is that the county budget is that small, I guess it's a pretty small county?

[Galaxy]

I'm sure the audit put them over the "break-even" mark.

[stevew]

How much did the audit cost?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Sounds pretty good to me, I think most county governments would be pretty damned happy to be that close to the mark. What's amazing is that the county budget is that small, I guess it's a pretty small county?

2004 estimates from the Census Bureau put us at 12,866

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

2004 estimates from the Census Bureau put us at 12,866

Yeah, guess it's hard to compare that to my heavily urbanized county, I think the Wake County budget for this year is a shade over $800 mill. We definitely waste a lot of that money, but that's probably true for most local governments.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Kudos to both Galaxy & SteveW for making note of what has become a trend for the current county commission -- spending money to have someone tell them what they generally ought to be able to figure out for themselves.

Prime case in point -- recent HUGE battle over the level of funding for the county-owned/privately-operated hospital (the only one in the county, the next closest being 20+ miles away from the geographic center/county seat). After the barely-if-at-all disguised attempt to withdraw all funding (about $500k) failed with opposition from pretty much all corners of the community, their lone supporter on a citizen "study-group" offered a counter-proposal -- spend $500k on hiring a consultant to determine the "right" level of funding for the hospital. After the general laughter stopped, that idea appears to have withered on the vine at least for now.

In this latest case though, I believe the audit was paid for out of the 2005 budget, not the 2004 budget.

No matter what you think of national politics, no matter what side of any familiar FOFC political hot topic you may find yourself on, I feel extremely safe in saying that a full accounting of the local politics here in this Deep South Peyton Place would bewilder & amaze 90%+ of this forum. I've been following local politics pretty seriously for roughly 20 years, in a variety of towns smaller & larger than this one, but damned if I've ever seen anything remotely as fucked up as the situation has gotten here. It'd be humorous it they didn't involve so much of my money in the whole mess.

[Peregrine]

Sounds about right. I forget who said it, but I read somewhere that no matter what the state or political leanings of the area, Greed and Incompetence are always tops on the agenda for all local governments.

[JeffR]

The only way I can see the complaint being reasonable is if there was if there was a significant overrun in one area of the budget. If everything else came in well under budget, but, say, parks and recreation was a couple million higher than it should've been and that pushed the total over the top, that'd be worth looking into. But if there's nothing like that, yeah, $13,000 is completely insignificant.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Sounds about right. I forget who said it, but I read somewhere that no matter what the state or political leanings of the area, Greed and Incompetence are always tops on the agenda for all local governments.

Probably not far off the mark at all, but I swear ... even knowing that the grass often seems browner on your own side of the fence, I really believe we've managed to assemble a group that's really special.

The 3-2 majority (all elected together in a throw-the-rascals-out frenzy) seems to be almost uniquely incompetent. Hell, they haven't really managed to be effectively greedy so far, their incompetence prevents even that goal from being reached.

In just 7 months in power, they've managed to:
-- Hire a just-defeated candidate to be the new county manager ... and then
we had a "he quit/no you're fired/you can't fire me, I just quit" scenario play out last week. Apparently, depending on who you believe, he's either gone off the deep end (writing checks to people almost randomly) OR they're so clueless even he couldn't work with them. Smart money, btw, is to bet on a push on this one.
-- Make their first order of business after taking oath to attempt to effectively close the hospital down. You think Social Security is a third-rail of politics, you ought to see a hospital closure effort. First & only time in more than a decade here that I've seen any issue unite 90% of this population regardless of race, gender, economic status, political affiliation, religious affiliation or any other influencer.
-- Got publically spanked for having 2 commissioners get caught for demanding they be paid mileage ... for coming to the office for regularly scheduled monthly meetings. (Those are included in their monthly salary).
Getting caught was as simple as anyone reading the monthly spending reports, which also included meals & travel for the chairman's wife who was not engaged in any county business other than going with her husband to dinner.
-- Having the new chairman refer to local black residents as "you people" on one high visibility public occasion and telling a black commissioner that "you know 'your people' better than me, you find one" when trying to fill a committee vacancy.
-- Managing to get embroiled in a duplication-of-services controversy with the equally inept & corrupt city government over the billing for trash collection services. Although I've been reimbursed for pre-payment to the county by the city (who has taken over billing for their residents), turns out that the county hasn't even approved a negotiated agreement on the matter yet ... but the money was already transferred by the county to the city anyway.

And those aren't a tenth of the highlights, that's just a random sampling.

I'm telling you, it's a very special group ... not only did I not vote for/support any of them, they've managed to exceed all of my expectations in just a matter of months. Right now, it's doubtful that any of the trio could manage to win an uncontested race for dog-catcher, less than a year after sweeping into office with margins in the 70%+ range.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JeffR

But if there's nothing like that, yeah, $13,000 is completely insignificant.

Thanks, that's pretty much what I was thinking.
I've haven't gone line-by-line through the audit yet, but there's no indication that there's anything like that here, it's $500 here & $3,000 there, etc.

I really believe what's happening is at least two-fold.
1) They've already indicated publically that they plan to raise taxes later this year, so they need a budget crisis even if they have to manufacture one.
2) This collection of wanna-be/never were "important people" have so little understanding of or experience with amounts even this size, that they feel like $13,000 is a huge number. And they're banking on the ignorance of the population at large to think the same way.

[henry296]

13,000 is well within the margin of error.

The only possibility is that one side doubts the accuracy of the audit because it seems incredible that the actuals were only off by such a small amount from the budget amount.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by henry296

13,000 is well within the margin of error.

The only possibility is that one side doubts the accuracy of the audit because it seems incredible that the actuals were only off by such a small amount from the budget amount.

I wish it were that simple, but the ones doing the complaining actually handpicked the audit firm from a short list of their own cronies. Although it wouldn't be the first time that they've decided a friend was suddenly an enemy, in this case, they appear to be wringing their hands over the {gasp} enormity of the $13k sum.

[clintl]

A lot of people have larger budget deficits than that.