(Annotating Supervisor Glenn McGourty’s Supervisor’s Report for next week’s board meeting…)
“Budget Ad Hoc Committee: Supervisor Williams and I serve on the Budget Ad Hoc committee and attended all the department meetings to discuss proposed budgets for the 2023-2023 Budget held April 5, 6 and 7. With sales tax and transient occupancy tax down by at least 10%, the County will have less money for their general fund or discretionary spending, which makes up a little less than one third of the budget. Further complicating the process is a lack of information from the Auditor Controller Tax Collector Treasurer Chamise Cubbison’s office (AC/TTC). Presently the financial books have not been completely closed on the 2021-2022 Fiscal Year, so the ending fund balances and carryovers are not certain. Without this critical information, it is difficult for the Board of Supervisors to create an accurate budget for the next fiscal year.”
NOTE: Ms. Cubbison told the Board she’d have that number in May and they agreed. Now they’re jumping the gun and complaining about it prematurely. The delays have been caused by short staffing, higher workloads of higher priority tasks, additional/new tasks, and the loss of experienced staff in the aftermath of the office consolidation. The delayed closeout is also affected by delays in departmental input for such things as committed but not spent funds.
McGourty: “As an independent elected official, Ms. Cubbison does not report to the Board of Supervisors and is accountable only to voters. Due to a lack of capacity in the Auditor Controller Treasurer Tax Collector’s Office, the Executive Office (EO) has assumed some of the financial reporting responsibilities including forecasting payroll, salary projections, revenue projections and fund balances. Normally this work is done by the AC/TTC but these tasks haven’t been provided regularly in the last 2 budget cycles.”
NOTE: Payroll forecasts, salary projections and fund balance estimates are not the Auditor’s responsibility to begin with.
McGourty: “Both the Board of Supervisors and the Executive Office have offered resources to assist the AC/TTC in catching up on financial reports needed for us to make a solid budget for the next Fiscal Year 23-23. The lack of cooperation by the ACTC office is truly discouraging. The BOS has authorized a contract to perform a forensic audit and assist with reporting, but we can’t move forward without the cooperation of the AC/TTC. While it is true that the Board of Supervisors has combined the POSITION of Auditor Controller/ Treasure Tax Collector, we did not combine the offices. They both operate as separate administrative units.”
RETIRED COUNTY TREASURER-TAX Collector Shari Schapmire comments: “The majority of this Board, Supervisor Haschak excluded, made catastrophic changes to two financial offices that they knew absolutely nothing about. By making these changes they have destabilized the entire financial engine of the County. Their actions definitely combined two offices as the one Department Head is now responsible for all functions within both offices. As I stated a year and a half ago: When too much financial responsibility is placed without a singular focus on critical functions, important items run the risk of not being attended to. That is exactly what is happening. Unfortunately, this situation is self-induced by the majority of the current Board of Supervisors.”
NOTE: As Ms. Schapmire correctly notes, the Board combined the offices, not just the “position,” despite their self-serving claims to the contrary. At the time they mistakenly thought there would be efficiencies and a reduction in staffing, even after being told that would not be the case because the functions of the offices do not overlap.
McGourty: “There is a lack of transparency in the AT/TTC’s office on information that even the Executive Office cannot access. The AC/TT has files in Excel format that are not part of the County’s MUNIS finance system. Consequently, there is no independent way to check the true fund balance of the County. This is a serious problem that needs resolution.”
NOTE: What McGourty hypocritically calls “a lack of transparency” is probably a reference to internal spreadsheets that track financial processes that are dynamic and constantly being updated and not yet official, such as pending grants, purchase orders, invoices, payments, new contracts, and contract amendments (some of which are “retroactive” which the Board refuses to be bothered with). If the Supervisors were really interested in “transparency” they’d ask their CEO for a budget vs. actual report from each department, not from the Auditor-Controller-Tax Collector-Treasurer.
McGourty: “A long-term solution would be to create a Department of Finance with no elected officials. This would require a majority approval by the voters to eliminate the AC/TTC elected position. Both Marin and Yolo County have this arrangement and people who handle their finances are hired based on professional qualifications, typically having extensive experience as Chief Financial Officers with degrees in Finance and are usually Certified Public Accountants. This is a model worth contemplating for Mendocino County that would improve financial efficiency, accountability and financial transparency.”
NOTE: Simply creating a “Department of Finance” would not produce a “long term solution” because the problem is larger than the Auditor-Controller-Tax Collector-Treasurer office. Not once has the Board demanded a budget vs. actual report from the CEO (even though the CEO has produced them occasionally in the past), choosing instead to blame the Auditor-Controller-Tax Collector-Treasurer for their own self-induced problems. In addition, a senior “certified public accountant” would be hard to hire from California’s declining number of CPAs. Finding CPAs to do financial audits is becoming harder and harder for school and special districts because fewer and fewer are available. In addition, CPAs are focused on making the numbers add up, seeing that they are properly accounted for, and that they are backed up by proper documentation. Budget management is not an area CPAs are or should be involved in. That’s management’s job.
PS. Putting this kind of personal criticism in a Supervisor’s report without giving the target an opportunity to respond prior to its publication is very unfair and unprofessional.
Groping for a Courthouse Annex
Supervisor Mulheren concluded her recent Supervisor’s report with this tantalizing mystery item: “March 31, 2023: Discussion re New Courthouse with Adventist Health and the shift to Downtown and the impact to the area near Hospital Drive.”
What could that possibly mean? Could the Adventists be considering a future purchase of the old Courthouse when it’s abandoned and moved to the new concrete bunker over by the railroad tracks? And what is “the shift to Downtown and the impact to the area near Hospital Drive”?
So we emailed the Supervisor for an explanation.
Instead of an emailed response, the perpetually upbeat Supervisor called to explain that there’s an informal group of people in Ukiah including herself who are working on finding alternate space for the DA and Public Defender’s offices closer to the new Courthouse when the Courthouse moves a few blocks down Perkins Street One possibility that was raised was using one of the buildings on Hospital Drive currently owned by the Adventists. As we could have told her and saved them a lot of time and hassle, the Adventists replied that in fact they’re expanding and need all the space they have and probably more. We reminded the Supervisor that back when the Office of the Courts first proposed this very dumb and expensive new courthouse idea the woman from the Court offices in San Francisco very specifically said the Courts would cover any cost impact to the County (which they, in their simple minds didn’t think would be very much). So, we suggested that Supervisor Mulheren urge her colleagues to send an official letter to the Courts saying they have to cover the County’s costs to accommodate THEIR new courthouse. (Although she agreed, we doubt she’ll do anything of the sort because these current Supervisors don’t do anything that doesn’t come from them. I should have tried to make her think she came up with the idea.) Mulheren also pointed out that the County paid a consultant to look at what it might take to build a new building for the DA and the Public Defender over near the tracks (Mulheren of course called it “the Great Redwood Trail”) and the consultant estimated that a new building of that type might cost $17 million. Which sounds low to us, but that’s the number. Whatever the number is, Mendo doesn’t have $17 mil or so sitting around for that. So far, Mulheren noted, nobody has any practical ideas about what to do about the DA’s and Public Defender offices post-new courthouse. If history is any guide, they’ll just build the new courthouse over by the tracks and let whatever happens happen.
Turning Potter Valley Into A Desert
Monica Huettl, reporting in MendoFever.com on an April 13 meeting of the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission (might as well drop the “Power” since there isn’t any anymore) wrote:
“Part of the goal of the Russian River Water Forum is to form a regional entity to take over the Potter Valley Diversion. Finding funds for this will be spread across Mendocino, Sonoma, and Northern Marin water agencies. A group of Upper Russian River water users is attempting to get permission from PG&E to tour the diversion facilities at Scott Dam and has signed an NDA.”
That right there is a classic Mendo formula for inaction and utter failure. First they are “trying” to form a “regional entity” out of various water agencies which are designed to be at cross purposes. Not to mention that the Sonoma County Water Agency calls all the major shots on the Potter Valley diversion, no matter what they call the “entity.” They can’t even tour the PG&E facilities without signing a non-disclosure agreement! (The Editor and I toured those facilities back in the 90s and nobody mentioned a non-disclosure agreement. If they had would we have ignored it. What crap!)
Then Huettl reports that “The State Water Resources Control Board (DWR) has hired Jacobs, an environmental consulting group, to look at groundwater storage and possible well-drilling sites in Potter Valley. There should be a formal announcement coming soon, and a community meeting to discuss results in a few months.”
An “environmental consulting group” is going to “look at” groundwater storage and possible well-drilling sites? Emphasis on “look at.” Hell, a dowser could do better than that. For a lot less. Again, a familiar formula for failure. Environmental consulting groups are the last people we’d ask to “look for” “possible well-drilling sites.” This will be followed by a “community meeting” in “a few months.”
Wow, some serious “trying” going on there.
Apparently, Potter Valley is hoping to find some water to replace the declining volume expected from the Potter Valley diversion in the future, assuming that they will have no say no matter what an amorphous “regional entity” might prefer. But of course they don’t want to pay for the looking on their own. Oh no, not the cheap water mafia. They prefer the state hire an “environmental consulting group” to do it for them, a “group” over which they will have absolutely zero control over content, scheduling or scope.
Huettl also discusses “the possibility of raising Coyote dam…”
“Congressman Jared Huffman’s office notified the Army Corps of Engineers, who manage Lake Mendocino, that funds for a study of the possibility of raising Coyote Dam did not make it into the Omnibus Bill. MCIWPC (the water and power commission) has applied for grant funds for a feasibility study on the possibility of raising Coyote Dam.”
If that sounds to you like something that was reported back in the 70s, you have a very good memory.
Potter Valley residents will be planting cactus gardens where once there were vineyards before Supervisor Glenn McGourty and his Cheap Water Mafia flock ever get any water from this bumbling assemblage of incompetents and do-nothings.
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