We’ve known for years that Mendocino County department heads do their own budget tracking and reporting and that those reports have been requested by Supervisor Williams periodically, with no support from his colleagues. We recently learned more details about those reports which, contrary to the Board’s false claim, puts the blame squarely on then-CEO Carmel Angelo and current CEO Darcy Antle (formerly Angelo’s budget point person).
For years, the CEO has required that departments provide her with detailed quarterly budget projections to the end of the fiscal year on June 30 with explanations for any variances of 5% or greater. These reports are not provided to the Supervisors or the Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector or the public. These reports are the most meaningful management reports available and are much more useful than any of the financial reports generated by the Auditor’s office which are by necessity months — and sometimes years — behind. They also show how much the departments are being charged for various overhead costs (the so-called “A-87” costs: insurance, utilities, facilities maintenance, vehicles, etc.) which the departments often privately gripe about since they have no control over those costs.
CEO budget staffers have had access to these reports ever since the County financial system (“MUNIS”) has been in place and which lately is working in near real-time.
Of course, there are lag times in some of the numbers, but the biggest expense, salaries, is easy to track in a timely manner, varying primarily by staffing percentages, hiring freezes, resignations, transfers, and the like — all of which the Supervisors and the public should be kept informed about since there’s a direct correlation between staffing, workload, backlog and service delivery.
Other actuals, such as department-specific revenues (fees, grants, etc.) and expenses like pending purchase orders/invoices can be handled with budget notes. (Basic tax revenues are tracked by the Auditor/Tax Collector’s office.)
The point here is that 1. The CEO has no excuse for not providing departmental budget reports to the Board or the public, and 2. The Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector isn’t and should not be involved in departmental budget tracking.
The abbreviated budget report from the current Auditor presented to the Board on November 5 which shows a suspiciously high budget surplus (after years of claiming they had no money) was for the previous fiscal year (ending on June 30, 2024) which was recently “closed” as usual, several months after the fiscal year ended. (But is it really closed when large projects are underway such as the Psychiatric Health Facility and the Jail Expansion which are incurring ongoing multi-year costs?)
For years the Supervisors blamed former Auditor Chamise Cubbison for not providing budget reports while the reports they should have received but never got were those departmental reports right under their noses but which they never demanded them their CEO. Instead, the Supervisors consciously blamed Cubbison time and again for not providing reports that she had no involvement in, knowing, as Supervisor Williams occasionally even reminded his colleagues, that they should be getting the departmental reports.
In the months leading up to Cubbison’s “suspension” last October Cubbison often tried to explain these budget realities, but the Board steadfastly ignored her as CEO Antle sat back and never offered to provide the Supervisors with the departmental reports that Antle should have provided, knowing that the Board was more interested in their misguided and costly “Get Cubbison” project than in the actual reports. Antle also knew that by withholding the reports she wouldn’t have to answer any pesky questions about budget variances.
How enlightening.
This seems to go beyond mere incompetence. Perhaps Mendoland needs its own DOGE, along with oversight from Musk and Ramaswamy? Or at least something like that.