Jacqueline Williams of Ukiah’s Ford Street Project commented on our recent article entitled ‘The Betrayal of Measure B’ on Facebook after someone re-posted it on Mendocino News Plus. Facebook is a poor vehicle for discussing these matters. So here’s Ms. Williams’ comment as helpfully forwarded to us by Mazie Malone:
Williams: “Your description of Ford Street’s Ukiah Recovery Center’s expansion Measure B request is incomplete and inaccurate. Our Measure B request was to fund the construction of a 22- bed sober living dorm. Our request did not include money to cover operational costs because it is a fee for service business. Most of our clients are eligible for Drug Medi-Cal. Those funds cover our costs unlike other behavioral health programs. You appear critical of the only agency I know of that continues to stretch to meet the overdose death crisis in Mendocino County. Perhaps that should be your next story. — Jacqueline Williams Executive Director of Ford Street
Mark Scaramella Responds: Ms. Williams is referring to: https://theava.com/archives/234591
Pardon us, but Ms. Williams has missed the point of the article: “The Betrayal of Measure B.” On review, we do not see anything there that is incomplete or inaccurate — unless perhaps she’s referring to the absence of her description of Ford Street Project services. Since the point of the piece was that no Measure B money has been spent on mental health or substance abuse treatment services, as required by the text of the measure, I do not see a need to point out the services that Ford Street Project provides in that context.
Here’s the quote from that article which referred to the Ford Street Project:
“The last time the mental health services question came before the Supervisors was in the fall when a proposal was made to allocate some Measure B money to Ukiah’s Ford Street Project. Despite the misleading use of the word ‘services’ in the agenda title, that proposal did not include any services, just some money to help build expanded facilities for Ford Street. Even this proposal was denied by the Supervisors on grounds that they didn’t know how much money was left in Measure B (and still don’t and have never asked) so they were afraid to commit the money to Ford Street.”
Again, we do not see how anyone could reasonably construe that as “critical of the only agency … that continues to stretch to meet the overdose death crisis in Mendocino County.” The criticism is aimed at the Supervisors and the Measure B oversight committee.
Ms. Williams should direct her complaints to the Supervisors and the Measure B oversight committee who have not only denied Ford Street Project the Measure B facilities money, but have failed to even propose that any Measure B money be spent with Ford Street or anyone else for the measure’s mandated treatment services for more than six years now.
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Mendo’s Not-So Comprehensive Financial Report
Late last year Mendo finally released of the long-awaited Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) for Fiscal Year 21-22 (July of 2021 to June of 2022). The release of this long-delayed report was met with applause from at least two supervisors who implied that it was connected with their abrupt ouster of Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector (ACTTC) Chamise Cubbison who was replaced as Acting ACTTC by Deputy CEO Sara Pierce.
But we doubt if any of the officials who claimed that this was some kind of major accomplishment actually read it. Its purpose is more of a sop to outside credit and granting agencies than any kind of informational or management document.
We checked a few random topics, such as the Prop 172 funds that are supposed to go to Law Enforcement and Emergency Services and discovered that Prop 172 isn’t even mentioned.
Nor is there’s any mention of asset forfeiture funds.
There’s no mention of tax liens and associated tax delinquency sales revenues.
The Teeter Plan fund is only mentioned in passing with no context or any indication of its status besides the ending balance in June of 2022. (“The County maintains 25% of the total delinquent secured taxes for participating entities in the County, as calculated at the end of the fiscal year, in the tax loss reserve fund. The balance in the [Teeter] fund was approximately $1,262,715 at year-end.”)
There’s no mention of the fund balance carry-forward that Mendo Officialdom felt was so important to understanding how much money they have. (But then, the carryover from a year and a half ago is of little use now anyway.)
The report does mention “general reserves” in the fine print of a fund balance chart as amounting to about $10.3 million as of June 30, 2022, for what that’s worth. When asked why this amount was much less than the reserves listed in the budget presentation at a recent meeting, CEO Darcie Antle said that the larger reserve number includes some “restricted reserves” even though no such annotation is included in the budget-reserves chart. Nor could we find any accounting of these “restricted reserves” elsewhere in the ACFR. (However, it’s possible that some reserves are earmarked to cover costs that have been committed to via contracts or purchase orders but for which there has as yet been no invoice. This could include, for example, the huge sole source mental health/services contract with the Schraeders and their Redwood Quality Management Company and various facilities and construction projects, probably including the new jail wing which should be its own fund too, but is not.)
There’s also about $8 million (or $8.7 million (?) elsewhere in the report) in a “road projects” fund which is designated for “planning, design, construction, maintenance and administration of County-maintained roads.” But there’s no explanation of what specific projects this money is intended for and how it may overlap with regular Transportation Department operations. The Road Fund is probably primarily used for projects that the County finances upfront in anticipation of later reimbursement from state or federal sources like FEMA. This is the fund that Supervisor John Pinches exposed in the 1990s as too big which lead to a mini-scandal and the premature retirement of then-Transportation Director Budge Campbell. Pinches argued that Campbell was sitting on money that should be used for long-overdue road repairs and upgrades. Campbell replied that he needed every dollar in the reserves to cover unanticipated future road work. Obviously, the road fund amount should be formally reviewed by the Board of Supervisors annually based on current and planned projects and the level and timing of reimbursements. But of course, they never do such things.
There were some interesting, if routine, numbers in the report, too, of course.
According to the ACFR there were a surprisingly large amount of taxable retail sales estimated to be about $2 billion in Mendocino County in the fiscal year from July 2021 to June 2022. The biggest of which were from gasoline and motor vehicle and associated sales. Construction and Garden supplies came in third. Two billion dollars in taxable sales translates to about $180 million in total sales tax, a little over $30 million of which goes into the General Fund.
The biggest property tax payer in Mendocino County is PG&E, more than double what #2, Mendocino Redwoods, pays. Four vineyard/wine outfits are in the top ten along with AT&T, Costco and “Mendocino Hotels LLC.”
Also, it appears that after the Covid Dip, Transient Occupancy Tax revenues have recovered and then some.
After Supervisor Ted Williams posted a link to the ACFR on his facebook page, an on-line commenter noted that the Supervisors pretending that the long-delayed report had something to do with their ouster of Chamise Cubbison and replacement with Sara Pierce was bogus:
“Oh yeah. Sara came in and drafted this in her first month on the job. If you putzes hadn’t thrown a monkeywrench into the works by pushing your own agenda we’d probably have had it long ago. No Christmas mercy for you.”
In the next overdue ACFR for 2022-2023 (for the fiscal year ending six months ago, last July, now expected to be finalized perhaps by next July), it will be interesting to see if/how they handle the borrowing of the Measure B funds for the jail expansion project and the Measure P “advisory measure” funds that are supposed to go to emergency services but which Supervisor Williams has hinted that the County may also raid.
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