Good Monday morning everyone.
At the last city commission meeting a new mayor was chosen, and a new year began for the city.
At their meetings this week, they will begin the budgeting process, which is normally long and terribly tedious. Even so, there is usually a lot of interesting information in there, and some tough choices are made that will impact every one of us.
They have a retreat scheduled for Friday morning. The piece of paper I have says 8 a.m., but it may be 9 a.m.. Ill have to check on that. During the a.m. hours. Each dept. head will give their budget requests. City Manager Steve Archer has already told them they will likely be facing a three-percent cut in funding.
In the afternoon there will be a goal setting session, which I think will be more interesting.
We are still early in the budgeting process, and goal setting is a huge part of that.
Last year there were a couple of public presentations of the goals, and there may be this year.
A few years ago they had 3-4 public sessions in the evenings to go over goals and such. Hardly anyone showed up for those, so it is hard to blame them much for not continuing.
Regardless, all the meetings are open to the public.
There will be more budget meetings and such as we go toward the final passage of the budget.
The goals are generally kind of gray and hard to measure. They are things like improving the city.
More later.
ask what the reserve fund [rainyday] balance is.
ReplyDeleteWhen Freeland left it was less than $8,000, not very healthy...
Ill ask that. I know it is much higher now, and there is a lot less debt. That is one thing we will have to give this commission credit for.
ReplyDeleteThis commission had nothing to do with less debt. Most of the old debt had reached the end and final payments were made. The only substantial fund balance is water and sewer, and that is because those rates were raised for upcoming repairs or replacement. The timing was right as it sounds like the water plant needs millions of dollars of upgrades to meet the new federal standards. Maybe if previous commissions had prepared for this 20 years ago it wouldn't hurt so much now.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post at 1:46pm. Sounds like you know the real story.
ReplyDeletePatrick has laid it all out before. It was the previous commission (before Kuhn Smith and Margolius) that got us on the right track with our debt.
ReplyDeleteYes he has. He may be right. He may not.
ReplyDeleteI dont know.
Its like in the early part of his decade, when the economy was going strong.
The publicans said it was cause the had rescued us from the Clintons by electing Dubya. The dems said it was because of Clinton that the economy was strong.
Theres always more to the picture.
When times are good both sides take credit, when times are bad, both sides lay blame at the other side. Politics as usual.
Politics as usual.
ReplyDelete>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You know I think that is the problem!
It is how you want to convey your message or the facts you wish to use to make your case. It does'nt always balance with reality.
Ex. I read an article not long ago regarding KPERS and the fact that they lost -23% on their porfolio. (Something like 4 billion). Now I understand that was the case with many of the big retirment funds as the result of the market meltdown of 2008-2009.
But, if you read further it said that each citizen of Kansas could owe KPERS as much as $3,544 dollars. The amount it would require to fund obligations and get it back on track. Now I know they made some changes staring in 2009.
The problem is that when you play politics enough the real debt is hidden somewhere in the numbers or is just not presented!
It looks like the only way that someone can truely be debt free is to DIE! :-)
BTW: I would like someone to tell me what I really owe to all the hidden deficits and upcoming obligations (like SS, National Debt KPERS etc.) - I'll bet they can't or wouldn't if they could.