Item 4b) on next Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors Agenda is described as “Discussion and Possible Action Including Direction to Staff to Develop a Contingency Plan for Creation of Department of Finance Based on Best Practice of Successful Counties (Sponsors: Supervisor Williams and Supervisor McGourty)”
We have a Board of Supervisors who somehow can’t bring themselves to demand that their CEO provide simple departmental monthly budget vs. actual reports, but they can thrash staff around with bureaucratic fol-de-rol about creating a “Department of Finance” via a “contingency plan.”
Supervisor Ted Williams said last week that this item “is about the county building the capability to generate its own regular reports, including department reports and budgeted versus actuals, without relying exclusively on the Auditor-Controller's office.”
As we have explained time and again, Budget vs. Actual reports should not be prepared by the Auditor-Controller’s office. They should be prepared by the Departments and the CEO/staff, as they were once back in 2018, proving how easily they could do it if they wanted to. In fact, even now the CEO’s office occasionally produces an abbreviated budget versus actual report for selected departments that seem to be running over-budget by some arbitrary (?) amount. This proves that they are already at least tracking the numbers, but they refuse to provide an overall departmental report, much less a proper report from each department.
Just getting (mostly delayed) numbers from the Auditor, without variance explanations by the departments in question, doesn’t do much good and provides no opportunity to manage the departments. The Auditor should prepare the revenue side of the report, but the budget vs actual numbers should come from the departments who not only should know what they’re spending, but what they’re going to spend and why, allowing not only status reporting, but projections for the year. Setting up yet another department won’t do any good. Most departments already maintain their own budget status, but the Board and CEO have never asked them to provide them on a monthly basis.
They can’t even get their staff to produce the monthly tax assessment report they “directed” be included in all future CEO reports.
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Former County Senior Auditor Norm Thurston:
The Board of Supervisors continues to defend its consolidation of the Auditor-Controller and Treasurer-Tax Collector Offices (though I am not sure how the argument that it was not a combination, just an elimination of one department head, works).
At the same time, they are rightfully concerned about the possibility of losing revenue due to parcels which have not been accurately assessed. One should remember that it was not too many years ago that the Office of Assessor was consolidated into the County Clerk-Elections Office. Would the current loss of revenues have happened if we still had an elected County Assessor? There’s plenty of room for speculation, but I think it is unlikely those losses would be happening if we still had an elected Assessor.
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Item 4e on Tuesday’s Agenda says, “Discussion and Possible Action Including Amendment of the Employment Agreement Between the County of Mendocino and Mendocino County’s Chief Executive Officer Darcie Antle for the Term of July 12, 2022, through July 11, 2026, with No Change to Existing Salary, that was Previously Approved on July 12, 2022, BOS Agreement No. 22-185 for the Amount of Two Hundred Thousand Dollars ($200,000), with Compensation Including Benefits Totaling Three Hundred Thirty-Eight Thousand Dollars ($338,000)/Annually; Amended to Correct Administrative Language Error (Sponsor: Supervisor McGourty).”
What was the error and why is this re-agenda item necessary? We’re not told.
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Another Agenda Item is: “Supervisors’ Reports Regarding Board Special Assignments, Standing and Ad Hoc Committee Meetings, and Other Items of General Interest. Attachments: Second District Supervisors Report.”
Only Supervisors Mulheren and Haschak even submit a written “Supervisors Reports,” even though the Board’s own rules call for each Supervisor to do so. Although Haschak and Mulheren provide very little substance in their “reports,” they at least check the box. The other Supervisors occasionally mention a meeting they attended during their meetings, but none of them have ever bothered to submit a Supervisors report.
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At their June 20 Board meeting the Supervisors directed staff to “publish a progress indicator on how many parcels have been assessed, total dollar amount assessed, and staffing levels of appraisers in each Edition of the CEO Report, with a goal of closing the gap and reaching 85 percent (currently at or around 70 percent) over the next 24 months.”
The next CEO report issued after that meeting was last week, almost a month later. In June when they issued this “directive” we expressed our skepticism that this (or any other monthly report with statistics) would ever materialize. Guess what’s NOT in the CEO report for this week? (Hint: if you guessed the assessment report, you’re better qualified than your Supervisor.) Will the Board even ask about this latest failure to follow their direction, much less protest? Especially considering that 1) this was a very modest and incomplete target (which didn’t address underassessed parcels, for example), 2) it didn’t include a report on staffing in the Auditor/Tax Collector’s office, and 3) the County claims to be broke largely because they are not collecting property taxes.
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Lastly, there are four more, mostly retroactive, contracts handing over about $7.5 million more dollars to Camille Schraeder’s Redwood Community Services monopoly. No bids, no questions, and because they’re retroactive, no opportunity for the Board or the Public to comment, even if they wanted to. This is over and above the $22 million Mendo handed over last month.
Item 3n) Approval of Retroactive Agreement with Redwood Community Services, Inc., DBA Redwood Community Crisis Center in the Amount of $260,000 per Year for Two Years for a Total of $520,000, to Provide and Monitor Crisis Assessment and Psychiatric Hospitalization Aftercare to Individuals Within the Boundaries of Mendocino County Not Eligible for County Medi-Cal Services Due to Having Private Pay and/or Medicare Insurance, Effective July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2025
Item 3u) Approval of Second Amendment to BOS Agreement No. 22-063with Redwood Community Services, Inc., in the Amount of $142,410, for a New Total of $2,116,068, to Provide Residential Treatment Facility Operations and Crisis Residential Services on a Transitional Basis to Mendocino County Adults, Ages 18 or Older, Who Are Experiencing a Mental Health Crisis, Effective March 16, 2022 through June 30, 2024
Item 3o) Approval of Retroactive Agreement with Redwood Community Services, Inc. in the Amount of $1,162,861, to Operate Crisis Respite Services in the City of Fort Bragg for the Mendocino Coast, Effective May 11, 2023 through June 30, 2025, with the Option to Extend the Agreement an Additional Two Years
Item 3p) Approval of Retroactive Agreement with Redwood Quality Management Company DBA Anchor Health Management, Inc., in the Amount of $3,600,000, to Provide Care Coordination and Data Management of the Delivery of Specialty Mental Health Services in Mendocino County, Effective July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024.
Just where are they going to provide residential mental health services and we’re talking millions of dollars in care for who…? Last I understood our county locked in mental health services yet we’re spending millions of dollars in providing it who is providing it to whom…? Sounds like a way to launder a lot of money to me since they can’t even reproduce budget reports on property taxes and so forth what in the heck is going on we’re talking about millions of dollars being spent here and yet nobody can even be accountable for their own departments. Oh my gosh have we lost our minds people? Need to be strong or something and demand proof of where all our money is going. Just saying it’s going somewhere is not showing that it’s going somewhere. Come on.
It seems to be a common meme in government bureaucracies at every level these days from National to Local – lack of clarity on where the money goes.
Of course the reality is that it ends up going into the pockets of the people we have voted in to positions of responsibility and their good friends.
Basically no opportunity to rip off the public for whatever you can get is ever missed.
And one of the best ways to do it is simply to refuse to provide comprehensive accounting for “public” money.
That is what we have here and everywhere and it is out of control and getting worse.
Eventually the whole self deluded Ponzi scheme will collapse and we the public will end up suffering mightily for it.
And if the past is any indicator those responsible will be well clear of the fallout.
I am not exaggerating, this is simply the way it is and it is our complacency that makes us complicit in it’s ongoing – worsening nature.
Kind of like the lobster – if you turn up the heat slowly you don’t even notice you are getting cooked.
Most of the above agenda items are in violation of the Brown Act requirement that they be “a brief general description” , ideally about 20 words in length, the purpose of which is to inform the public of the subject matter so that they can determine whether to monitor or participate in the meeting or to request their Supervisor to pull consent items for open Board discussion. The agenda items are especially long and overly detailed in the Consent Calendar; particularly irritating is that the exact language is repeated in Proposed Action. Cut and paste may be easy but it is not edifying. Clarity is crucial as millions of public monies involved.