Sigh . . . I’m sure to piss off a few of the County Board Sups with this post and get labeled a whiner. It might be kind of hard to read as it is essentially a rant, but this is really absurd. Their budget process is awful! Here’s how I’d change it, communicate it better and what I see is wrong.
1. SCHEDULE: Thanks to Chair McDonell for putting what they have of a schedule on line. It’s better than nothing. It’s a little fluid and hard to put dates in your calendar that you can count on, but its better than not having a calendar or outline at all.
The improvements I’d suggest to this is a shorter version with dates, times and actions expected that gets updated as things change.
2. WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT: This year, I started following the County Budget by looking at the submissions by the Human Services Department. I quickly found out that they are sorely lacking in detail. To try to figure out what the recommendation for my agency was, it was like reading code. After my initial disappointment in not being able to follow numbers, I started asking around to people I perceived to know more than me about the county process, and got it confirmed by many people that I was asking good questions which they could not answer and that yes, its an awful process with bad information. You can’t track the numbers in any meaningful kind of way.
What surprised me was when the Executive Budget came out, it actually had LESS information than the Department budgets. I could no longer find the detail I was looking for. Took me quite a while to figure out the info I wanted was in the 307 page document.
So, I thought I had it all figured out, until . . . I started looking at agendas that said things like this . . .
Public Works & Transportation oversight
• Public Works, Highway and Transportation (Pages 531-573)
• Solid Waste (Pages 426-444)
Ok, where the hell do I find pages 531-573? One document is only 307 pages and the other sections are not numbered. I tried to follow along by looking at the line item document and the sections and thought I was doing ok following along until . . .
I asked a question about where people think the money for the RTA is. Why, on page 798, of course. Ok, now where the hell is that? Its the carry over money from last year, which I couldn’t find anywhere. So, I’m confused. I’m not sure if what I’m looking at on line is what they are voting on. And I can’t figure out how to even form a question to get the information that I am looking for at this point and I’m tired of all the shrugs and apologies! Grrr . . . .
I told you it might be a bit of a rant. Here’s what I would improve: Either put the document the Supervisors are all carrying around with them on line – with the page numbers so we know what they are talking about. Or, in the alternative, put the page numbers on what is on-line, it’d be clunky, but we’d have a chance of following along. Or, at least indicate on the agendas where they public might find the information that they are referring to in terms we can understand.
3. AMENDMENTS ROULETTE: It’s rather disconcerting knowing that at various committee meetings Supervisors may be bringing up amendments you might care about or might impact you, but the only way to find out is to show up the meetings. Sometimes, that means you have to show up 3 or 4 weeks in a row to find out if they are finally going to make the amendment or not. It makes one wonder, do I testify for weeks until it happens in case it happens, does it matter? How do I best try to influence the process and get my voice heard without wasting hours and hours of time? If you don’t testify, at what point do you lose your right to testify? When amendments are made, they are handed out only to committee members, who often vote on them at that meeting, preventing the public from being able to comment on the amendments at that meeting and leaving you to only testify at Personnel & Finance and even that was a question about if you could testify (see below).
The suggestion I have here is quite simple. Make the amendments available with the agenda (on-line) or indicate on the agenda the subject matter of the amendments. Have extra copies of amendments for the public.
4. LIST OF AMENDMENTS: On Friday at 3:00 was the first time I could get even a partial list of amendments to the budget that would be discussed Monday night. It took me talking to three supervisors, the county board office and the Controller’s office to figure out how to get a copy of the amendments that were going to be discussed at Personnel and Finance. I’m not even sure if they would have put them on line if I hadn’t been asking. And the amendments they will be discussing tomorrow night are also not on line yet. And, they discussed amendments that weren’t available to the public at last night’s Personnel and Finance meeting. Who knows what they might discuss on Wednesday.
Same recommendation as above.
5. PUBLIC TESTIMONY: I had heard from a County Board Supervisor that it was unclear if the public would be allowed to testify at Personnel and Finance. So I tried to figure out if people could or could not testify. It took until 4 hours before the meeting to get a definitive answer. Hardly enough time for people to show up and speak and not communicated to the general public in any meaningful kind of way. The kicker to that tho is, that the same email also informed us that we would not be allowed to testify when this is before the whole county board.
My recommendation would be that first of all, they make it clear when the public can speak and not speak. Second, they should take testimony at the County Board meeting if there are significant changes or amendments proposed.
TO SUMMARIZE
– The information about the budget they are working on is very hard to follow or find, even for those who have been doing this for years. They need to either get the document on line or add the page numbers or change the agendas so they are not referring to information the public can’t follow along with.
– Most amendments are made, without public notice or ability to testify on them before the committee votes and without copies being made available to the public. They need to have the amendments available on line, in advance, and publicly noticed.
– Amendments, even on the one occasion (Personnel & Finance) they are made in advance, are barely available with less than 24 hours notice. Same recommendation as above.
– Basically, Wednesday at Personnel & Finance is your last chance to testify to the County Board on this year’s budget since they expect to rap up, even tho they may make all kinds of changes in the next few weeks and can still submit amendments at the final board meeting on the 16th(??). They should allow public testimony on the night the County Board passes the budget.
I know the City budget process drove me crazy and needs improvements, but the county . . . needs a complete overhaul.
