Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 4
anything. So how is this possible? Who is looking at these numbers? Who is representing the city,
representing the aldermen in these numbers? And, who on this Board is checking the numbers? | was on
this Board. Alderman Deane, you should check some of these numbers. I’m not sure anybody does anymore.
Keep this number in mind: $28 million is in unassigned fund balance account and CAFR in the Fiscal ’18
budget. | gave you the page numbers.
Now, Mayor Donchess, look at the minutes of the budget meeting where he represents his resolution. Mayor
Donchess said the budget review committee recommended this resolution. First of all, Mayor Donchess says
undesignated and designated reserve account of roughly $30 million. There’s no such notation in the
ordinance of either undesignated and designated reserve accounts. | don’t Know where that notation comes
from, but no one in the budget committee questioned it. He then says, and I’m reading directly from the
minutes, this represents 11.6 percent of the fund balance account, undesignated fund balance account.
If you calculate this out, then 100 percent of the budget represents $258.6 million. Let me repeat that to make
it very clear. The $7.1 million represents 11.6 percent of the budget. Mayor Donchess. Then the
appropriations represent $258.6 million. That's a familiar number. $258.6 million happens to be the general
fund appropriations. But that’s not what NRO that you are supposed to meet, NRO 135-A, it doesn’t mention
the general fund money. It talks about municipal appropriations, $300 million. Those numbers are incorrect.
It’s not $258 million. It’s $301 million is what you are supposed to go by.
Then | went looked in the back of the budget minutes to see if there’s any tab or presentation on how this
whole thing worked out. If you’ve got $28 million in fund balance and you take $7 million out, you are left with
$23, how can it be possibly then be 10 percent of $300,000? | looked for the presentation and it isn’t there.
You look at the budget minutes for 20-April, 20-September, no presentation. Nobody asked.
There’s a question about overlay, and that was misrepresented but that’s not what I’m addressing at this point.
No details presented. Wrong information about what NRO 135 represents. False information about the
percentages in budget appropriations accounted for. It takes ten members of this Board to adopt. Ten
members, no matter how many are sitting. It takes ten members of this Board to adopt this resolution. |
recommend you either turn it down or reduce it well below $5 million and try to find savings in the budget. It is
time to pay the piper. We've got a lawsuit against the city. The city overrode the Spending Cap by $8.2 million
to cover this up because someone’s got to pay the piper. To cover this up, you come up with this phony
resolution with false numbers, and | resent it.
Mayor Donchess
Mr. Teeboom’s presentation is not correct. What he misses and the $9.6 million of surplus that we generated.
We started the year with $29,521,501 in the unassigned fund balance account. That is as of June 30, 2016.
During the course of the year, we generated $9,639,927 of surplus. That included escrows that had been
carried over from the previous year in the amount of $991,499. We assigned those escrows, we continued to
carry them forward, and last week you passed the escrow allocations, and escrows are from unappropriated
revenues, of $1,548,428, leaving a figure of $7,100,000 which is being assigned to the tax rate.
The $9,639,000 of surplus was generated in the following manner: First of all, we exceeded the budget on
revenues by $5,600,000. We had unexpended appropriations including the escrows that had been carried
forward from the previous year in the amount of $4,039,927. At the end of all of this, if we apply the $7.1
million to the tax rate, as is proposed, and this was discussed in detail with the budget committee, and there
was a memo with these memos presented to the budget committee, we will have at the end of the year as of
June 30, 2017, an adjusted fund balance of $29,921,501. We are increasing that fund balance from last year
by $400,000. It’s going to climb from $29,521,501 to $29,921,501. The base that is used to calculate the
minimum unassigned fund balance that is required is the same that we have been using for the last 20 years
since the Cap was passed. More than 20 years. That has always been the total general fund appropriation.
The same as last year, the same as Mayor Lozeau’s administration, the same as Mayor Streeter and on and
on.
