Well, we now have a 2011-12 City budget. 

If Mayor Dave Schmidt doesn’t veto it.  Or if he does and the Council over-rides that veto.

Monday night the City Council voted 6-1 (Ald. Joe Sweeney dissenting) to approve a budget that, according to the cover story of today’s Park Ridge Journal (“Budget OKd, But Work Remains,” Mar. 23), is projected to produce a $200,000 deficit (on revenues of $57.2 million and expenses of $57.4 million) despite a 4.51% property tax increase.

Or at least that’s the way it looks on the surface of what, in reality, is one big shell game with more shells than most taxpayers and voters – and, probably, most aldermen – can keep track of.

Let’s start with the fact that the City has (by our count) 28 – yes, 28! – separate shells…uh, we mean… funds, plus a number of Special Service Area (“SSA”) shells…oops, did it again…funds for those defined parts of the City that receive some special benefit that the City decided to charge against the properties receiving that special benefit.

Of those 28 funds, the City actually budgets for about 15 of them, starting with the General Fund, which is the City’s main operating fund.  That’s the fund from whence payroll gets made, even if the General Fund has to borrow from some other shell…d*mn!…fund in order to have the cash necessary to make payroll – something that has happened several times over the past few years.

One reason for that is because we have been spending more than we take in.  D’oh! 

That’s one of the legacies of what we call “The Frimark Years” – after former mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark, who ostensibly came up with the concept of a smaller, leaner, meaner City Council that has found ways to increase taxes every year it has been in existence while still posting big deficits and spending down fund balances to what are approaching dangerous levels.  But look at the bright side: we’re saving $8,400 a year in aldermanic compensation, as Frimark promised.

Another reason is that the City is cash poor.  As we understand it, almost 60% of the General Fund’s “cash” consists of a $4.5 million I.O.U. from the Uptown Redevelopment project (a/k/a, the Uptown TIF) for debt service and other(?) payments the General Fund has had to make on behalf of the TIF because the TIF hasn’t generated enough revenues for the special TIF-related funds to discharge their obligations. 

That TIF is a legacy of a prior City administration and, according to the most recent financial reports, looks to be a gift that will keep on producing deficits until at least 2016.  If we’re lucky.

Meanwhile, one of the Uptown TIF’s chief architects, former city manager Tim Schuenke, has his City pension checks sent to Delafield, Wisconsin, where (at last report) he was raking in around $100K in self-imposed exile as the city administrator.  And another one of the TIF’s architects, former mayor Ron Wietecha, also isn’t around to watch his tax dollars flow down that particular drain.

But we digress.

In addition to the General Fund, the City also has 9 “Special Revenue” funds, 6 “Debt Service” funds, 3 “Capital Project” funds, and 3 “Enterprise” funds, all of which are restricted to certain limited uses – which apparently include serving as an in-house ATM when the General Fund runs low on cash.  Admittedly, that beats borrowing from the bank, or issuing working cash bonds or tax anticipation warrants.  But it’s still just robbing Peter to pay Paul.

And it also skews the budgetary process by what appears to be, for lack of a better metaphor, balancing apples with oranges.  By considering all of these separate and distinct funds as part of one budgetary unit, the City is effectively “balancing” projected General Fund deficits with, e.g., projected enterprise fund surpluses.

That may technically be legal, but it sure seems misleading.

Which should be expected from a shell game with 28 shells.

To read or post comments, click on title.

“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” Luke 16:10 (King James Version).

This is a secular blog, but this Scriptural passage seems particularly apropos the page-one story in yesterday’s Park Ridge Journal about the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64’s lunchtime supervision program controversy (“Dist. 64 Wants More Of Students’ Lunch Money,” Mar. 16). Simply put, if D-64’s board and administration can’t effectively manage such a small thing as a lunchtime supervision program, how in the heck can they be trusted to manage all of the other, more important, functions of a school district?

The ostensible tip of this iceberg is a $25 per year increase – from $140 to $165 – in the per-student charge for the supervision provided to those students who don’t go home for lunch.  This is the first such increase in 10 years, according to a somewhat obtuse (or is it abstruse?) March 14 Memo from the D-64 Business Manager, Rebecca Allard, to the Superintendent and School Board.  That caused Ms. Allard’s insightful conclusion that “revenues are not keeping up with expenses.”

Brilliant!

As a result, the taxpayers are subsidizing this lunchtime supervision to the tune of $75,000 this school year.  And, without the increase, it looks like that subsidy would grow to $90,000 next year.  That’s admittedly small potatoes when we’re talking about an annual budget of over $60 million, but that’s also why it so aptly illustrates how small matters often reveal larger truths.

Until 2007 this lunchtime supervision program had been run by something called Parent’s Paid Lunch and Before School Care of District 64 (“PPLP”), a not-for-profit private corporation formed in 1973, reputedly by double-income parents who weren’t at home to provide lunch (and lunchtime supervision) for their own kids.

According to PPLP’s IRS 2005 Form 990 cover page, as recently as the 2005-06 school/fiscal year PPLP was turning a $36,000 “surplus”/profit on gross revenues of $564,906 and expenses of $528,847.  PPLPs IRS 2006 Form 990 cover page, however, shows an increase in expenses to $573,987 while gross revenues decreased to $524,163. 

In August 2006, however, Kathleen Goodman and some other Field School parents began questioning the privately-run program.  According to an August 24, 2006 article in the Niles Herald-Spectator (“Field parents question Dist. 64 lunch program”), those parents wondered why the program’s costs weren’t a District expense rather than a user expense; and they challenged the integrity of the program’s management by then-executive director, Natalie Blachut, who was being paid $12,694 and allegedly paying a group of parent supervisors $18/hour plus a waiver of the lunch supervision fee.    

By the next school year, PPLP had dissolved, turning over its $151,256 in surplus funds to the District and individual school PTOs; and the District took over the program.  After less than four years of District “management,” however, all those PPLP surplus funds are gone and the taxpayers are shouldering deficits.    

According to the Journal article, the big concern for the D-64 Board wasn’t the deficits that the taxpayers were being forced to swallow because the District has been asleep at the wheel on pricing this glorified baby-sitting service so as to cover its costs.  No, the Board was concerned about the size of that $25 increase!  And Board members Eric Uhlig and Pat Fioretto voted against it.

The fact of the matter is that this service is effectively a convenience to those working parents who need/want to leave their kids in the care of school staffs rather than make other arrangements for those kids to eat lunch at home, or at a friend’s/family member’s home.  According to that 2006 Niles Herald-Spectator article, then-Supt. Sally Pryor claimed the cost of that program was $1/day/child “for an hour supervision.”

If true, that’s an outstanding bargain for the parents of those kids in the program.  In fact, it’s too good a bargain – which is why we have questions.    

What’s the per-student or per-hour cost today?  Does the fee cover the costs?  How many students are in the program?  How much revenue does it generate? How many supervisors are there and what are they being paid?  We sure can’t tell any of that from Ms. Allard’s Memo, which as far as we know is the only information the School Board members had about the program when voting on the fee increase Monday night.  

But vote they did – however under-informed, uninformed, or misinformed they may have been. 

And those are the folks we’re trusting to run our $60 million-plus a year educational system.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Last week we criticized Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 for its latest display of hide-and-seek, as reported by the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate: concealing the amount of money it intends to spend on a “master plan consultant” until after the consultant is chosen.

Reading between the lines, this “master plan consultant” very well may also become the District’s referendum consultant if it can identify enough maintenance, repair and renovation projects  that have been neglected (since the District blew its wad on the construction and bonded-debt financing of the new Emerson back in 1997?) as to justify a major new building initiative that will require a binding referendum.  

So today we’re taking another shot at District 64 based on another H-A article (“Tax hike on table for all District 64 board hopefuls”) about the upcoming school board election, which appears to be the first election in memory that doesn’t feature a slate of candidates selected and endorsed by the General Caucus of School Districts 64 & 207.  That might explain why we’ve got more contested races than we’ve seen in 20+ years, with 5 candidates vying for the 3 four-year terms and 2 candidates vying for the 1 two-year term. 

The H-A article focused on referendums, specifically if and when District 64 could/should hold another one to suck more money out of the beleaguered taxpayers.  

Only one school board candidate,  Anthony Borrelli, sounds dead set against any new tax increase referendum.  He stated that he “would attempt to place the district in a sound financial footing to be able to operate without [a referendum].”  That sounds like a concept we can get behind, at least insofar as Borrelli has fleshed it out in his “Candidate Statement” posted on the County Clerk’s elections website – the only such statement posted by any District 64 candidate. 

We also like what little we’ve heard so far from newcomers Dan Collins, who claims to have a plan “to ensure we stay within our budget without an additional referendum”; Kristie Bavaro, who wants board members to “maintain accountability and scrutiny”; and Marshall Warren, who says he will support a referendum only for “a precisely-defined set of needed physical plant projects.” We hope all three of them will soon start putting some meat on those rhetorical bones, a la Borrelli. 

Unfortunately, their incumbent opponents can’t even manage comparable rhetoric. 

The best incumbents Scott Zimmerman and John Heyde can do is avoid the substance of the issue altogether by claiming they will honor a “promise” allegedly made during the 2007 referendum campaign that the District would not seek another taxing referendum until 2017.  And incumbent Genie Taddeo simply blames Illinois law for being “structured to cause school boards to go to the public periodically for needed funding.”  We assume she’s referring to the tax caps, which is the standard target for every tax-and-spend bureaucrat and politician in this state.

Like most District 64 taxpayers, we’re still in the dark about just how many millions of additional tax dollars the District already has received (and spent) compliments of that 2007 referendum, just as we are in the dark about just what measurable educational benefits all those extra tax dollars have produced. 

On the latter point, we note that the District is trumpeting the fact that it’s again among the 29 Cook County elementary school districts that received the 2010 “Bright Red Apple” award  based on five criteria, only one of which is “academic performance.”  Not surprisingly, the District remains deafeningly silent about why it isn’t among the 14 Cook County elementary school districts that also won a “Bright A+” award, which is based entirely on “academic performance.”

For some time we’ve been questioning the District’s inability to break through to the upper echelon of Chicagoland school districts in ISAT scores, noting how District 64 underperforms several other districts that spend less per pupil,  have larger class sizes, and/or have lower salaried teachers and administrators.   When talking about school quality, student achievement is pretty much Job One – followed by the ability to produce that achievement in the most cost-effective way. 

While we’re not ready to brand any of the newcomer candidates as a budding Michelle Rhee, they all at least seem to be attuned to the fact that District 64 has to be managed better and do better on student performance measures like the ISATs.  Meanwhile, the incumbents appear content with the “same ol’, same ol'” – as measured by things like the Bright Red Apple award, pupil/teacher ratios, teacher compensation and advanced degrees.

That difference might well turn this upcoming election into a referendum...on the incumbents.  

To read or post comments, click on title.

Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 has been not only the most costly of our three entirely-local governmental bodies but also the least transparent: it remains the only one among the City of Park Ridge and the Park Ridge Recreation & Park District that does not videotape its meetings, and its board minutes often read like the redacted version of a federal indictment. 

So it comes as no surprise that – according to the District’s business manager, Rebecca Allard, as reported in yesterday’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate article (“District 64: Field narrows to 2 in search for master plan firm,” March 8) – our secrecy-loving school board members and administration are concealing the price of the contract the District will be offering the lucky winner of District 64’s facilities “master plan consultant” contest until the District actually makes its selection.

After all, why give the taxpayers any reason to be riled up about yet another expensive consultant boondoggle until after it becomes a “done deal”? 

According to the H-A article, this “master plan” is “intended to prioritize the maintenance needs of all nine District 64 schools.”  Apparently the District doesn’t have anybody on Staff who has the ability to determine, plan and budget for “a range of current building maintenance needs” like: 

• “heating and ventilation” (Carpenter is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Hmmm, what might solve those two problems?);  
• “carpeting” (Can’t we get a free carpeting “expert” by dialing 588-2300?);  
• “painting” (Benjamin Moore or Dutch Boy?);  
• “utilities” (Electric Company or Water Works?); 
• “lighting” (We’re all for it!); and  
• “asphalt and landscaping” (Not interchangeable). 

The two finalists are allegedly “architectural” firms: Oakbrook-based FGM, and Ohio-based Fanning Howey, which conveniently just happens to have a Park Ridge office.  That’s why we’re putting our standard PublicWatchdog $1 wager on Fanning Howey – that, and the fact that its website advertises its expertise in such traditional architectural and engineering disciplines as “community engagement” and “referendum/bond issue assistance.”

As the H-A reports, Fanning Howey brazenly admits to a strategy for getting community support for what likely will be boxcar-number tax increases and/or bond issues that includes thumping the tub for schools hosting “church groups, community-centered assemblies, sports leagues, concerts and adult education classes…during non-school hours.”

The better to justify expensive additions, major renovations, and designs that are “flexible” – a term as essential to describing modern public buildings as “vibrant” is to describing municipal redevelopment projects.

Can you feel you wallet getting lighter already?

If not, check out the District’s recent “Ten Year Financial Projections” from yet another consultant: StratPlan Consulting & Modeling.

Start with its Page 1 description of the District’s “Recent History.”  It describes the District’s 1999-2007 financial problems as if they were produced by forces of nature (and that perennial villain, the “tax cap”) rather than by the acts and/or omissions of the School Board or administration – such as the District’s mismanagement/mis-budgeting of the “New Emerson” project that left it on the brink of having its finances taken over by the Illinois State Board of Education in 2005, a situation it averted only by issuing $5 million of non-referendum “working cash” bonds to restore its depleted fund balances.

Head over to Page 6 and read StratPlan’s (i.e., the School Board’s) description of timing a “strategic referendum” so that it can ask the voters “to simply replace the expiring debt levy with a comparable operating levy – at no net tax rate increase.”  In other words, just keep replacing debt with more debt so that it (and the expensive debt service) becomes permanent.

But what strikes us as outright deceitful is that, despite the pages upon pages of graphs and tables, we can’t find any record of exactly how much in total property tax dollars District 64 was collecting before the 2007 tax increase referendum, compared to what it has been collecting since that referendum.  Is it just coincidence that this report starts with the 2007-08 school year?

We also can’t seem to find that tax information in anything else available on the District’s website.

But that’s the kind of obfuscation and misdirection we’ve come to expect from District 64, its board and its administration…and from the consultants it hires.

To read or post comments, click on title.

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. 

To read or post comments, click on title.

If you enjoy sturm und drang in City government, Monday night’s City Council meeting provided a heaping helping of it. 

You’ve really got to watch the video of this one on the City’s website (thank you, once again, George Kirkland) to fully appreciate the BTUs Ald. Jim Allegretti was radiating during his hyper-burn over Mayor Dave Schmidt’s parliamentary denial of Allegretti’s point-of-order request for an opinion from City Atty. Everette “Buzz” Hill about his (Allegretti’s) point-of-order objection to Schmidt’s procedural denial of Ald. Joe Sweeney’s motion to approve a zoning change application that the City Council denied on December 20, 2010, despite its recommendation by the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission. 

Got that?

We’re not sure we do, and we don’t think we can explain it much better than that, other than to note that the mayor’s action blocked – at least for the time being – a 20-unit condominium development on what is now a three-home site on the south side of Touhy Avenue, just east of Town of Maine cemetery. 

As we’ve stated in many previous posts, we oppose the construction of any new multi-family residences in Park Ridge because: (a) they consume too much more of our diminishing green space than single-family dwellings; and (b) they exacerbate, exponentially, an already-overburdened sewer and water infrastructure that we have been skimping on maintaining and replacing.  That makes this Touhy Avenue project undesirable on those bases alone. 

But we also question this project for the suspicious way it has gotten this far. 

It was originally approved by P&Z in what what looks to have been a rush-to-judgment maneuver last Thanksgiving week by only 4 commission members (Anita Rifkind, Lou Arrigoni, Cathy Piche and Mary Catherine Wells (v. Aurora Abella-Austriaco and John Bennett) when 3 of the 9 members, including chairman Alfredo Marr, were absent.  That shorthanded crew put their stamp of approval on eight (8) units more than the 12 units permitted under the zoning code – a 66% overage!

That makes the 8 extra units the City Council gave Norwood Builders for its still-dead 168-unit Executive Office Plaza project on Northwest Hwy. back in 2007 look like a drop in the bucket.

And the vague reasoning offered by those 4 “yes” votes, along with their cookie-cutter style “findings of fact” reported in the Minutes of that P&Z meeting, do little to dispel the notion that this project got “special” treatment.

What exactly is the allure of this particular project?

We’re not sure, although we’ve heard rumors that it’s the “affordable housing” that Nan Parsons and the City’s Human Rights Commission have been pushing for years.  Basic math suggests that stuffing 20 residential units into an area zoned for only 12 could provide enough total revenue to the developer to justify more “affordable” unit prices and, consequently, more “affordable” rents for those units – even if it means virtually ignoring our zoning laws.

And even in a down market, there’s money to be made on real estate speculation if the “deal” and the price are right.

But although we think this project is bad for Park Ridge and may be a bit kinked, we cannot agree with Mayor Schmidt’s parliamentary maneuvers Monday night – just as we cannot condone Ald. Allegretti’s foot-stomping temper tantrum in response.

Unless the City intends to hire a trained and impartial parliamentarian to consult at every Council meeting, the mayor cannot use his parliamentary “chair” to indulge in Roberts Rules of Order “Gotcha!” that elevates procedural technicalities over substantive governance. 

And with Allegretti already MIA at most of the City’s budget workshops, his walking out on a regular Council meetings to indulge his fit of pique leaves 4th ward residents even less represented than when he’s actually in attendance…if only slightly.

Schmidt may have viewed himself as “Horatius” at the bridge, preventing a bad project from being reconsidered and passed.  Allegretti may have viewed himself as “Mr. Smith Goes to Butler Place,” unwilling to be silenced on his point of order.  As political theater it was mildly entertaining, albeit in a perverse “Chicago-style” way. 

But it wasn’t good government. 

To read or post comments, click on title.

Only four aldermen showed up at Saturday’s Park Ridge City Council budget workshop, which was the minimum attendance for a quorum.  Alds. Allegretti, Bach and Carey were MIA, as they have been for most of the other budget workshops this year.

SIDEBAR: Those three should have the decency to abstain from voting on the budget due to their manifest disinterest and likely ignorance resulting therefrom, but we aren’t going to hold our collective breath waiting for that to happen.  It should be pretty clear to you folks in the 3rd, 4th and 6th wards, however, that you aren’t even getting your $100/month worth out of these three when it comes to perhaps the single most important thing an alderman does each year: adopt a budget.

We doubt, however, that the “ABC” aldermen could have added any enlightenment to Saturday morning’s process, which you can witness for yourself by dialing up the video on the City’s website. Even a few minutes of viewing should show you why the City’s finances are screwed up and unlikely to get better anytime soon, unless the public officials representing us start bringing their “A” games to these proceedings and to their preparations for these proceedings.

Perhaps the most troubling vignette in that regard was when the Firefighter’s Pension Fund secretary, J.D. Bruchsaler, took to the podium to explain why the City shouldn’t have to budget the approximately $900,000 of pension contributions this upcoming budget year that the fund’s own actuary apparently prescribed in his November 2010 report.

Not surprisingly, City Mgr. Jim Hock has left that contribution out of his proposed 2011-12 budget even though nobody seems to be ready, willing and able to guaranty that such an omission is fiscally prudent for the pension fund or for the City.  What we do know, however, is that not having to deal with an additional $900,000 in the expense column make’s Hock’s job of balancing the budget quite a bit easier.

To the best of our ability to follow Bruchsaler’s bizarre discussion with the Council (which begins around 3-1/2 minutes into the video), he claims the City can ignore the $900,000 contribution prescribed by the pension fund’s actuary because a change in the law might, repeat “might,” result in a lower current contribution requirement when the actuary issues his next report…in  November 2011.

In other words, the City is supposed to budget its firefighter pension fund contributions based not on what it has been told it owes by the fund’s actuary but what it’s being told it might/will be told by the actuary next November – assuming the law doesn’t change between now and then.

Both Alds. Joe Sweeney and Frank Wsol were unimpressed by Bruchsaler’s arguments, with Wsol going so far as to suggest the aldermen need an opinion letter from the City Attorney exculpating them from any liability if they follow the  go ahead and not make that recommended $900,000 contribution this year.

But the most telling aspect of Bruchsaler’s relatively brief presentation is how loaded it is with words like “guess,” “estimate,” “believe” and “expect”; phrases like “don’t know” and “can’t say for sure”; and a variety of seemingly-random percentages and dollar amounts tossed around for no apparent reason other than to create confusion, which it does quite well.  One other thing: Bruchsaler keeps repeating actuary Timothy Sharp’s name as if doing so might magically ward off all the questions he clearly had no ability to answer.

Expect this $900,000 pension contribution to be a key battleground for the remainder of this budget debate, with Hock and a majority of the current (and outgoing) aldermen trying to avoid making it so that they also can avoid the heavy lifting of further budget cuts and/or tax increases that such a contribution this year will cause.

Given the underfunding of Illinois public pensions we keep hearing about, we believe that the prudent thing to do would be to make the 2011-12 contribution as prescribed by the fund’s actuary just a few months ago.  If we end up finding that the law would have permitted the lower contribution this year, that should set the stage for a lower-than-expected contribution next year.

But don’t expect Hock and this Council to do something that fiscally responsible and logical.  Not when it can kick the can down the road and avoid having to make any more tough budget cuts or tax increases for at least another year. 

And, oh yeah: not making that $900,000 pension fund contribution makes it easier for the current Council to make another year’s worth of arbitrary donations of public funds to certain aldermen’s favorite private community groups.

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As part of the continuing effort by our City officials trying to convince us they are really working to give Park Ridge taxpayers cost-effective government, there will be another budget workshop tonight at City Hall (505 Butler Place, 7:00 p.m.).

The Council continues to address the initial budget proposed by City Mgr. Jim Hock and his Staff, which jacks up the City’s portion of our property taxes by 5% (following a similar 5% hike last year) even though the cost of living has not increased by anything close to 5% last year, or 10% over the past two years.  But simple percentage hikes in taxes and/or fees are standard operating procedures which allow government bureaucrats to avoid making tough choices of “this” over “that” even though that’s one of the things they are being paid to do.

As occurred last year, Hock and his executive staff (i.e., full-time City employees paid, cumulatively, close to $750,000 a year) are trying to wipe their hands of any further budget responsibility beyond that initial draft by dumping it into the hands of the Mayor and City Council (i.e., part-time volunteers paid, cumulatively, $20,400 a year).  And, as last year, this Council seems all too willing to let that happen. 

Which makes it likely we will see a repeat of last year’s goat rodeo, where our elected officials volley increasingly arbitrary revenue and expense numbers around The Horseshoe at an increasingly frantic pace until moments before the deadline for passing a balanced budget expires, at which point somebody proclaims the budget to be “balanced” – even if the balancing is done with inflated revenue projections, deflated expense projections, smoke, mirrors and stealth technology.

What Park Ridge taxpayers deserve, instead, is a budget where every number is owned by both City Staff and our elected officials. 

In our opinion, what the Council should do tonight – and should have done as soon as it received Hock’s/Staff’s draft – is to tell Hock/Staff, in no uncertain terms, that any property tax increase is unacceptable; and that, consequently, each department head must provide a written report (available to the public on the City’s website) within 7 days that describes the specific budget cuts he/she recommends to make up for the 5% of his/her budget that can no longer be expected from the property tax increase.

In other words, Wayne Zingsheim will own the 5% cut in Public Works’ budget; Chief Kaminski will own the cuts in the Police budget; Chief Zywanski will own the cuts in the Fire budget; and Librarian Janet Van De Carr will own the cuts in the Library budget. 

Oh, yes: and City Mgr. Hock, as the City’s COO, will own all of those cuts.

That way, the mayor and each aldermen also will own those cuts or any changes to those Staff recommendations they approve – so long as the official presiding over each committee and Council meeting at which Staff recommendations are changed insists upon roll call votes for each and every nip, tuck and tweak, rather than those voice votes that often allow individual aldermen to escape accountability.

Sadly, we don’t expect any of this to happen from the fiscally feckless majority that’s been sitting around The Horseshoe producing multi-millions of dollars in deficits since the voters foolishly bought former mayor Howard Frimark’s snake oil referendum to cut the Council from 14 to 7 aldermen.  The only good thing we can say about this group of tax-and-spenders is that they haven’t added massive borrowing to their legacies – although much of the credit for that has to go to Joe Egan’s 2009 police station referendum and the voters who torpedoed it and the multi-millions of bonded debt it would have required.

But as inept as this current Council has been at budgeting and management, in fairness we must acknowledge that it inherited an albatross in the Uptown TIF, which is pointed out in a story in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“City Budget: Uptown TIF debt going nowhere soon,” Feb. 15).

The H-A story reports that over $5 million of City funds has been sucked into the TIF black hole with no hope of repayment in full for another 12 years.  And repayment even then isn’t assured if the City decides to fund additional capital projects in the TIF district – like, say, Ald. Robert Ryan’s favorite boondoggle, a parking facility on the Scharringhausen lot on Fairview.

The TIF was the City-orchestrated brainchild of 26 citizens whom, in 1999, were assembled into the Uptown Advisory Task Force (“UATF”) that included, ironically but not surprisingly, Ryan himself.  The TIF-enabled redevelopment was touted at the time by its proponents as a retail-oriented development that would pour money into the City’s coffers while turning Uptown into a “vibrant” retail and entertainment destination.

Lofty visions of Barnes & Noble, Crate & Barrel, the Gap, etc., however, soon were replaced with a condominium and townhouse-dominant project, notwithstanding the results of a City-sponsored 1999 survey which showed strong citizen opposition to Uptown condominiums.  But by that time the UATFers, along with then-mayor Ron Wietecha, then-City Mgr. Tim Schuenke, and most/all of the aldermen then on the Council (including Ald. Rich DiPietro) had signed onto the multi-family residential-heavy deal lock, stock and barrel.

Less than a decade later, we have a project that has not moved past the first of its intended four phases because it hasn’t even been able to pay its own debt service, or the subsidy payments it committed to make to School Districts 64 and 207.  In 2011-12 alone, the City will need to make $2.9 million in TIF-related bond payments, according to the H-A article.

So while the current occupants of 505 Butler Place didn’t make the entire current financial mess by themselves, we cannot afford a continuation of the deficit-producing business-as-usual that our public officials have tried to pass off as sound fiscal policy since 2006-07, when the City posted its only surplus this millennium.

The goats are loose at City Hall.  Will anybody be able to round them up?

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Last week we wrote about one element of bad City government: the fiscal irresponsibility of the City Council in over-riding Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto of the new (and undeserved) 2+ year sweetheart contract for City Manager Jim Hock.

Today we address another element of bad City government, the latest example of which also occurred last week and also involved Hock: Public officials who apparently prefer to govern in secret and think that’s what “closed sessions” are for. 

Last Thursday night, Hock and City Clerk Betty Henneman hosted what they called a “Candidate Information Session” for the aldermanic candidates in the upcoming April election.  Not a bad idea, until the point where (as we understand it) “information” turned into misinformation when Hock and Henneman advised those in attendance that what is discussed in Council “closed sessions” under the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) is expected to be kept confidential; and that its disclosure will be frowned upon.

In other words, what goes on in closed-sessions stays in closed-sessions.  

And if that kind of keep-it-under-your-hat attitude wasn’t bad enough coming from Hock and The Hen, current Alds. Rich DiPietro and Joe Sweeney, who also are candidates and were in attendance that night,  reportedly sat silently in seeming endorsement of that concept.

Although secret closed sessions might be the way Hock, Henneman, DiPietro and Sweeney would like to conduct City government, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s “Guide to the Illinois Open Meetings Act” (http://www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/government/openmeet.pdf) advises otherwise:

“[IOMA] requires that all meetings of public bodies be open to the public unless the meetings fall within one or more of the exceptions….” (Guide, at page 20);

“The exceptions authorize but do not require the closing of a meeting falling within their scope” (Guide, at page 20);

“A public body cannot sanction one of its members for disclosing information or issues discussed in a closed meeting” (Guide, at page 28); and

“[T]here is nothing in [IOMA] that provides a cause of action against a public body for disclosing information from a closed meeting.” (Guide, at page 29).

For those of you with short memories or who are new to the workings of City government, back in January 2008 then-Ald. Dave Schmidt blew the whistle on the closed-session Council discussions concerning then-mayor Howard Frimark’s secret push for the City to buy the 720 Garden property for a new police station, at $200,000 more than the City’s appraised value.  That earned Schmidt a Frimark-orchestrated official but legally-meaningless “condemnation” by Frimark’s “Alderpuppets” – including DiPietro – and also by The Hen on March 3, 2008.

Almost 3 years later, it appears DiPietro and Henneman still don’t (or don’t want to) “get” IOMA, and they’ve been joined in their Star Chamber mentality by Hock and Sweeney.  Worse yet, they are attempting to bamboozle the City government newbies with their misinformation and propaganda.

Hock looks to be permanently lost in the bureaucrat funhouse on this point, while Henneman looks to be equally lost but generally harmless (other than to the extent she can sanitize City Council meeting minutes).  And we’re stuck with DiPietro for another two years, because that’s all his new term will be and he reportedly has told constituents this is his last “campaign.”  Nevertheless, we may be witnessing the end of the Culture of Secrecy that has pervaded City government for so many years.

That’s because we finally have a mayor who cares about, understands, and complies with IOMA.  And it looks like we finally may be getting a couple/few aldermen with similar views.

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In our May 30, 2008, post (“Going Into Hock For New City Manager”), we criticized former mayor Howard P. Frimark and the City Council for giving then-new City Manager Jim Hock a contract that treated our tax dollars like Monopoly money and that “put [Hock] “a lot closer to Boardwalk and Park Place than most of the residents he will be serving.”

While we criticized the approximately $200,000+ compensation package he was given, we did not criticize the one-year term because we thought such a “guaranty” was reasonable consideration for Hock’s moving here from Oak Park, Michigan.   

But that term expired in 2009, and Hock has continued to work and receive that same level of compensation without a contract, with no apparent detriment. 

Until December 20, 2010, that is, when the City Council approved a deal “negotiated” – and we use that term about as loosely as we can without laughing out loud – by Alds. Rich DiPietro, Jim Allegretti, Don Bach and Frank Wsol that not only improved Hock’s financial arrangement but also extended that arrangement through April 30, 2013 – which the Council locked in this past Monday night with its 7-0 over-ride of Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto of that contract.

If anything speaks to what’s wrong with government in the State of Illinois, or the County of Crook, or our own sleepy little burg, it’s that kind of fiscal irresponsibility.

Why does Hock deserve a contract at all instead of remaining as an employee at will, as the vast majority of us are?

Check out the video of Monday night’s meeting on the City’s website and then let us know whether you heard a satisfactory explanation by any of the aldermen of why Hock deserves a 2+ year employment contract.

Watch and listen to Ald. DiPietro prattle on about how he and his colleagues believe Hock’s new contract is a “fair” one.  

Watch and listen to Ald. Joe Sweeney – who previously described this contract as being a good deal for Hock but not such a good deal for the taxpayers – attempt to justify it by noting that back in 2008 Schmidt, as a new alderman, voted to give Hock a 1-year contract.  That’s right: because Schmidt voted to give Hock a one-year contract almost 2 years ago, Sweeney can now vote to give Hock a 2+ year contract.

Watch and listen to departing Ald. Frank Wsol compare Hock’s compensation under that new contract to the compensation provided his counterparts in other communities.  As if other dysfunctional and fiscally-challenged local governments are somehow the gold standard by which Park Ridge government should be measured.

We especially liked Wsol’s praise of Hock’s performance, which consisted of Wsol’s pointing out that Hock has maintained City services at the level he inherited from his predecessor.  In other words, Hock hasn’t screwed up to the point where services have declined.   

But let’s get down to the real nitty gritty.

How many of you who have been helping pay Hock’s $200,000/year (all in) compensation earn similar compensation?  And for those of you who are so fortunate, how many of you also have a 2+ year contract that calls for a $117,000+ severance payment? 

What we are seeing from this Council, 5 members of which are heading for the exit come April, is the same mindset that has pushed public employee compensation and pensions, especially in Illinois, to the point where they have become an unsustainable burden on the taxpayers. 

A few weeks ago, Gov. Pat Quinn and our General Assembly passed a 67% state income tax increase, ostensibly to make up for decades of mismanagement. And our own City Manager has just recommended his second consecutive 5% property tax increase.

The better to pay for his new contract.  

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