Mendocino County Today: June 14, 2012

ON TUESDAY (June 12), The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the fiscal year 2012-2013 budget recommendations as calculated by CEO Carmel Angelo and staff. The recommended budget will come back for approval in 60 days with final budget hearings scheduled for September. There was little objection to the Good Ship Mendo's fiscal plans pegged to a “structural deficit” of just over a million dollars.

THIS DEFICIT results from the predictable yearly increase in health care and retirement contribution costs, and is only partially offset by a modest increase in projected revenue. Instead of closing the projected million dollar gap by asking the departments to further cut costs, which likely would have involved another round of staffing reductions, the Executive Office proposed to reduce the General Fund transfer to the previously sacrosanct Department of Transportation (DOT) Road Fund. Road money inspired the only argument of the day apart from a 4-1 approval of a tax-paid travel jaunt for lame duck supervisor, Kendall Smith, which we'll get to.

SINCE THE DAYS OF BUDGE CAMPBELL, who functioned for many years as a kind of independent fiefdom at the County's Department of Transportation until he abruptly retired in the 90s after then-newly elected John Pinches raised a question of how much money he was sitting on, it has been assumed that the Road Fund got a set percentage of the annual property tax. Perpetual County Administrator Al Beltrami and long-time Auditor Controller Dennis Huey always backed Campbell's automatic draw on property taxes, fending off repeated inquiries about the legal basis of the annual transfer, insisting that it was required based on the Road Fund's status as a Special District.

KYLE KNOPP, Mendo’s Budget Officer in the CEO’s office reported that the CEO's office had again questioned the legal authority supporting a mandatory transfer of funds to, basically, County Roads. County Counsel Jeanine Nadel said that it was her opinion, based on changes in state law, that there was no legal requirement for the transfer beyond the say-so of the Supervisors, and the die was cast that a long-time budgetary practice was about to end. It was also proof that all this had been worked out ahead of time, as…

HOWARD DASHIELL, Campbell's successor at Roads (aka the Transportation Department), hustled to the podium to express concern about the recommendation, although he candidly admitted that he agreed with the opinion of County Counsel. He also stated that in most counties in the state, the Road Fund was supported solely by the gas tax and did not get General Fund money. The projected draw for next fiscal year would be about $3.3 million, bringing the Road Fund balance up to about $6.8 million. The Executive Office was recommending a one time reduction in the transfer of about $1.3 million, to be used to pay off the County Microwave System and something called the Southwest Border Patrol settlement, which resulted from a previous District Attorney named Norm Vroman who either mis-used the dough or did not properly document use of federal grant money intended for the prosecution of illegal aliens. In short, the money that usually goes to Roads was freed up to pay down the Microwave bill and the disappeared Southwest Border Patrol tab.

DOT DIRECTOR DASHIELL expressed concern that the reduced transfer was the start down a slippery slope that could result in future year reductions or even elimination of the transfer which could cripple the ability of Roads to properly maintain the 1,000+ miles of County pavement. He discussed various scenarios under which Roads would need every dollar of the transfer but also conceded that the department could absorb the recommended one time transfer. Although he said he agreed with County Counsel's interpretation (which amounted to a back-handed admission that he knew all along that legal authority for the transfer did not exist), he also called for the Board to hire outside counsel to provide an independent opinion.

SUPERVISOR HAMBURG expressed concern for the roads in the sprawling Fifth district and that of the Third district, which combined have about 70% of the County's maintained road system. Supervisor Pinches strongly asserted that he would not support the recommendation if he thought it was anything but a one-time transfer and wanted Board confirmation to that effect. County Counsel stated that the Board could set that as policy but could not obligate future boards to do the same.

THE PUBLIC DEFENDER, Alternate Public Defender and DA Dave Eyster then addressed the Board, all expressing some concern about the budget process and the impact to their operations. John Sakowicz, who has expanded his horizons from government gadfly outsider to Grand Jury, Redevelopment Phase Down and Retirement Board insider, rose to agree with the suggestion for an outside legal opinion on the reduced transfer to the Road Fund, cautioning that if the action of the County was improper it would be detected by the County's outside auditor, resulting in damage to the County's credit rating.

SAKO ALSO MANAGED to push a couple of hot buttons by referring to the Southwest Border Patrol settlement as “lost litigation” and by claiming that Gallina, the County's outside auditor, ordered the County to put Teeter on an amortization schedule. Chair McCowen quickly corrected Sako that the current Board of Supes directed that the Teeter debt be put on an amortization schedule with all Teeter revenue segregated and directed to paying off the accumulated Teeter debt. Once the County did the right thing by Teeter, Gallina, which had repeatedly turned a blind eye to the problem, suddenly highlighted it as a mega financial red flag for the County.

COUNTY COUNSEL JEANINE NADEL took exception to the “lost litigation” comment, saying that her office did not lose litigation (translation: we settle the cases we know we can't win) and that the Southwest Board Patrol settlement resulted from the screw-up of a previous District Attorney. Left unsaid was whether the offending DA was the notoriously incompetent Meredith Lintott or the libertarian Vroman (who actually ran the office pretty well). If the screw-up was a result of incompetence, it would have been Lintott's. If it was a matter of grabbing a pot of money that Vroman could put to whatever purpose he felt like putting it, Vroman did it.

AFTER LENGTHY DISCUSSION, Supervisor Pinches made the recommended motion to take the Road money. The call for a second was met with silence. Board Chair McCowen then passed the gavel to Vice Chair Hamburg in order to make the second. None of the three rural Supes wanted their name on a motion that could result in diminished funds for maintaining the County’s ever deteriorating roads in their districts. Supervisor Carre Brown also raised the issue of inclusion in the recommended budget of proposed fee increases, the next item on the agenda that had not yet been approved by the Board, stating she would be voting no on the motion for that reason. The motion was quickly amended to delete the not yet approved fees. Supervisor Brown has rightly complained in the past that inclusion of fees before they are approved by the Board undermines the Board's authority and makes it look like they are a mere rubberstamp for the CEO. And of course they are (mostly) a rubberstamp for the CEO. Or at least that is the way it looks to the public. But why reinforce that perception?

NO ONE WAS PRESENT from the local SEIU (Service Employees International Union), the County's largest bargaining group, during discussion of the recommended budget. SEIU habitually complains that they are not consulted about issues that affect them, but when big-ticket budget issues are on the agenda, their reps don't even bother to show up. But SEIU wasted no time after the fact in complaining that the County should have tapped the Road Fund last year to avoid the employee wage cuts. Except last year the Auditor and the DOT Director were still maintaining the ruse that the Road Funds could not be tapped. SEIU maintains the County failed to act last year just so they could justify forcing a pay cut on the employees. Never mind that tapping the Road Fund would, at best, have been a temporary fix unless it was made permanent, something the Supes showed no support for. The paranoids in SEIU also say disclosure of the ability to limit the transfer to DOT was kept secret until after the election so as not to damage McCowen's chances for re-election. Which only shows that the incompetents running SEIU into the ground are both stupid and paranoid. Since McCowen only has about five miles of County maintained roads in his district, raiding the Road Fund to pay for other essential County services is not likely to be much of an issue in his district. And it is a measure of just how far out of touch with reality SEIU is if they think anything could have changed the landslide re-election of McCowen given that the SEIU candidate was running on the sole issue of the pay cuts, which were necessary, in the minds of any reasonable observer, to stabilize the financial condition of the County.

IT HAS BEEN AN OPEN SECRET for some time around the County offices that the Auditor-Controller's office does not freely share information. A regular feature of budget discussions involves the last minute submission of information from the Auditor's Office, which has rarely submitted information in advance. The prevailing attitude seems to have been that the less time the Supes and CEO have to scrutinize the info before acting on it, the better. The lack of an open exchange of information makes it harder for the Executive Office to develop the budget. Withholding information until the last minute, or not providing the justification for certain functions, are strategies used to maintain control of the budget process. Former Auditor-Controller Dennis Huey was a master of manipulating the process.

A BREAKTHROUGH seems to have been made with the absence from the office of the elected County Auditor Controller, Meredith Ford, who has been largely missing in action for the last year or so due to an undisclosed but serious illness. She was not present for the discussion about de-Teetering Brooktrails on Monday, which left her staff fumbling to respond to questions about why they were unable to do the accounting work necessary to de-Teeter Brooktrails. Failure to completely de-Teeter Brooktrails leaves the County at risk for losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in up front tax payments that will never be recovered if the Brooktrails vacant lots, arguably worthless, continue to tax default and continue to fail to sell at auction. Part of the answer about the inability to get the work done seems to be staffing shortages in the office as the Assistant Auditor-Controller, Lloyd Weer, scrambles to cover the duties previously handled by the Auditor. Meaning someone else has to cover his duties, and so on. Having increasingly assumed responsibility for day to day operations, Assistant Auditor-Controller Weer, probably at the urging of the Executive Office, took a fresh look at the issue of the Road Fund transfer and apparently agreed that their was no legal authority to support it, other than the direction of the Board of Supes. The (elected) Auditor-Controller's office has a history of ignoring direction given by the Executive Office and the Board of Supes when they don't agree with it, so without concurrence from the Auditor, the recommended reduction in the Road Fund transfer was unlikely to occur.

THEN THE BOARD proceeded to utterly disgrace itself by approving a travel request from lame duck Supervisor Kendall Smith to attend the National Association of Counties (NACO) junket in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The vote was 4-1 to approve, with only Supervisor McCowen having the guts to vote NO. Smith, of course, was very pleased at yet one more travel freebie for herself courtesy the taxpayers. She prattled on at length, claiming that it was vitally important to the interests of Mendocino County that she attend the meeting so she could personally respond to the “threat” posed to the west coast by — brace yourselves — the flotsam that will soon appear on our beaches from the Japanese tsunami!

IN FULL FREE ASSOCIATION MODE, Smith said that the Supervisors’ travel was very modest in comparison to other County offices which she said traveled all the time at much greater cost.

SMITH WANTS TO GO to this thing to look for her next job. She'll be a double dipper when she leaves her Supe's “job” because she's unequipped for anything but some kind of public employment. (The supervisor would fit right in at First Five. We envision her as Assistant Coordinator of New Paradigms.)

LAST YEAR when Smith made the same pitch to attend the same conference (sans Japanese cola bottles ashore at Big River) Pinches and Brown joined McCowen in voting NO. Hamburg, natch, seems to view Smith as his favorite charity so long as the money doesn't come straight out of his pocket. This year Pinches and Brown inexplicably voted to send Smith on another tax paid junket.

WE WONDER if the four Supervisors who voted yes on another freebie for Smith considered what that approval looks like to the rest of us? For months now the County has screamed, “We're broke. We're cutting pay and we're lopping off people because we have to.” And then they vote 4-1 for a County-paid week in Pennsylvania for a person adjudicated to be a stone crook by three successive grand juries and the District Attorney of Mendocino County, a person who stole money from the County via fraudulent travel reimbursements. Right now there are people sitting in the County Jail for stealing stuff worth a lot less than the thousands of public dollars Smith ripped off. So four supervisors vote to give her another couple thou. Dizzzzzzgusting!