It seems like only yesterday when City budget time was a lot like waiting for the election of a new Roman Catholic pope: minimal information provided to the public, followed by a puff of white smoke and an announcement.  Except that then-City Manager Tim Schuenke made sure the City’s budget smoke was accompanied by plenty of mirrors to mask his fiscal charades.

Back then, aldermen got their Council meeting packets by home delivery.  But even those aldermen who diligently studied their budget materials over the weekend wound up dazed and confused come Monday night’s meetings, when Schuenke would enter the Council Chambers at 7:25 p.m. with fistfuls of brand new budget numbers still warm from the copy machine. 

That was usually followed by head scratching, mumbling and bumbling, and budgets that turned into big deficits by the end of every year this millennium except 2006-2007. 

Now the public can view most of that information on the City’s website, although that hardly makes the City’s sausage-making budget process anything to cheer about – even if current City Mgr. Jim Hock isn’t quite as deceptive as his predecessor.  

But this past Monday night’s budget workshop – held following the regular COW meeting so as to improve the chances Alds. Allegretti, Bach and Carey might actually show up – provided a glimmer of hope when a couple of good things occurred that we hurry to note, because we expect that they will be undone as soon as the affected special interests wake up, Ald. Robert Ryan decides to show up, and Hock actuaries-up.

The most notable good thing was that a “consensus” of aldermen – admittedly only a temporary snapshot of opinion at one brief moment in time – actually agreed to act responsibly and budget for the full amount of police and fire pension funding formally recommended by those plans’ actuaries rather than some lesser amount that’s being bandied about. 

As we discussed in one of last week’s posts (“Pension Funding Newest Variety Of Budget Gibberish,” Feb. 22), there seems to be some kind of bizarre, unexplained alliance between Hock and those pension boards on this issue.  Frankly, that’s puzzling, given that deferring funding of what we understand are already underfunded pension plans does not appear to be consistent with the fiduciary duties of those pension boards’ members.

Ald. Frank Wsol correctly pointed out that the City should fund those pensions according to the official recommendations it has received from the funds’ actuaries, rather than according to the bogus-sounding quasi-predictions from Hock and a couple of pension trustees about how new state pension laws might be implemented and what contributions the funds’ actuaries might recommend this coming November – especially where neither pension fund has formally requested the City to actually cut the tax levy to reflect the deferral of funding. 

Wsol also was spot-on in rebuffing Hock’s vague scare-tactics of linking this full-funding to additional budget cuts or tax increases, calling it just more “kicking the can down the road” management at which Hock has proved adept since coming here three years ago.  Exactly! 

The other notable good thing was a non-consensus: a 3 (“Yes”: DiPietro, Allegretti & Bach) to 3 (“No”: Carey, Sweeney & Wsol) split on budgeting for yet another year’s worth of arbitrary giveaways to private community groups-of-choice Center of Concern, Meals on Wheels, and the Maine Center for Mental Health.  The 3-to-3 tie defeated that proposal – at least until Ald. Robert Ryan shows up at the next budget workshop, requests a new “consensus” on the issue, and then provides the additional “Yes” vote needed to add-back that expenditure.

As we’ve said before on several occasions, if these private organizations provide essential services that the City should be providing to its residents, then these organizations should be treated as vendors and paid as vendors, under legally-binding contracts with the City to provide a fixed amount of clearly-defined services at an agreed price. 

That’s effectively what City Council Policy No. 6 requires for departing from the City’s general policy that public money can’t be donated to private organizations.  But this and prior City Council’s have been derelict for years in following that policy or demanding any accountability from the organizations that have sucked well over a million dollars out of the City treasury in the past 5-6 years.

Perhaps the best example of no accountability is the Center of Concern (“CofC”), the single biggest recipient of City funding.  It’s February 18, 2011 funding submission to the City claims that it served 6,770 Park Ridge residents through 8,350 “contacts” during 2010. 

Yet that submission makes clear that none of those “contacts” were for housing-related assistance; and we can’t tell from that submission exactly what other services were provided by  any of those “contacts”  – except that, for Park Ridge residents (as stated on the fourth page of that submission): “Statistics reflect number of services tracking contacts, not hours. Total PR contacts was 8,350. Service hours are not tracked.” 

In other words, assuming that CofC’s records of the number of “contacts” are accurate, we still don’t know what services those “contacts” represent, how much time was commited to those services, and exactly what each delivery of them cost for that $55,000 of our tax dollars the City Council threw at CofC last year.  For all we know, that entire 55 grand could have gone for 6,770 of those famous CofC “wellness” telephone calls: 

“Mr. So and So, this is the Center of Concern. Glad to know that you’re well enough to answer your telephone today.  Have a good one, and we look forward to talking with you again tomorrow.”

Mr. Park Ridge taxpayer, that will be $8.12.  Please bend over.

Sound crazy?  It sure is!  In some respects, it sounds like an outright scam.  But it appears that’s the way our City officials have been willing to throw our money around, even as our streets and sidewalks crumble, our homes flood, sewers collapse, and other things that the City is required to do get neglected or deferred.

So the little bit of fiscal sanity we got from the folks around The Horseshoe last Monday night was a welcome respite.

Too bad it’s not likely to last past the next budget meeting.

UPDATE 3/7/11:  As 0ne commentator has pointed out, we miscalculated the cost of those “wellness” calls because we divided last year’s $55K donation of City tax dollars by the 6,770 individuals who CofC claims to have served, instead of the 8,350 service “contacts.”  So instead of $8.12 per one-minute average “wellness call” (assuming that’s the service for which the City is being charged) it’s only $6.58 per call; and instead of that “whopping $486.72/hr.” equivalent CofC is getting for those services, it’s only $394.80 per hour.  We apologize for those errors. 

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