Is "Fiscal Conservatism" Dead in Lake Forest? Part 2

Yesterday I discussed the discrepancies between what Council members said and what they did prior to 2015. Specifically I looked at the use of the label “fiscal conservative” and pointed out how many of the votes taken prior to 2015 did not reflect what I considered to be the patterns expected of a fiscal conservative.

Since joining the council, and especially in the past few months, I have been further struck by the votes of my colleagues.

CUTTING THE BUDGET

During the budget discussions on May 12, I went through the City Council portion of the budget and recommended cutting it by 5%, most of the cuts coming from the Council’s travel budget. (Click here for my discussion on this subject) My colleagues didn’t support me, and instead did some bookkeeping changes and then some minor cuts to travel. In fact, if you listen to the tape, Councilman Robinson was dismissive and disparaging, complaining that my recommended cuts ($7,000) were not worth the time to discuss them. Perhaps in his world $7,000 isn’t worth discussing, but in my world it is.

My main goal in offering the changes was to urge the City’s directors of the different departments to search through their respective budgets and all of us together cut the entire budget by 5%. In a $40,000,000+ budget, a 5% cut would be $2,000,000+. I received no support on that suggestion either.

I was puzzled. Here we had the perfect opportunity to try to cut government spending, and not one of my colleagues who are self-described “fiscal conservatives”, jumped on board. Truth be told, Councilman Nick did dip his feet in with some minor support, but my other three colleagues gave me the bum’s rush and moved on.

Cutting fat in the budget not only gives us more money to spend in better ways, it decreases our need for money in the first place. It also can lead to higher productivity, which in the long run can save even more money.

Going forward I will ask the Council to spend more time on the budget process and I will ask each of my colleagues to take one specific Department and study that department intensively so that we can do a better job cutting government spending. I’m a fiscal conservative and that’s what I would do.

SAVING MONEY ON CONTRACTS

At the next meeting on May 19, we had the opportunity to save $200,000 on the street sweeping contract. (Click here for my discussion on that topic). We sweep our streets every week, but half the cities in Orange County sweep their streets every other week. I suggested that for half the year we continue with every week sweeping, but for the other half of the year, when debris was minimal, we change to every other week. This plan was more ambitious than the policy used by half the other cities in the County, and I had spoken with the Head of the Water District who told me that the proposed policy would have no impact on discharge into the ecosystem. Much to my dismay, my colleagues rejected my ideas again, with most of the opposition from Councilman Robinson. Ignoring the fact that half the cities in OC had a less ambitious policy, he argued that street sweeping was a major part of government and we had always swept every week and our residents expected us to continue to do it. I wanted to test the theory and see if for the next year we could save money and not reduce the quality of the overall service, but I was out-voted. The result - $200,000 down the drain!

One of the problems I encountered here is that the bids were presented so close to the renewal date it wasn’t possible to get in a good discussion, although given their pattern of voting, I’m not sure that would have made a difference. The problem of late dated proposals reaching the Council is all too common. It makes for poor discussions and an inability to fully discuss the situation. In particular, it doesn’t allow for any room to consider changes which might save time and money. I’m going to ask the City manager to provide proposals in a more timely manner that allows more wiggle room.

GETTING COMPETITIVE BIDS

Next came the discussion of the Police contract. (Click here for my article on that subject.). As already reported, the County raised our contract by nearly $900,000, bringing the amount spent on Police services to an all-time high, and part of a disturbing trend of yearly increases. Worried about the trend, Councilman Nick and I asked our colleagues to support an ad hoc committee to examine options for providing equivalent (or better) services at a less expensive rate. Once more, my colleagues (Voigts, Robinson, and Hamilton) argued forcefully for the status quo. Mayor Voigts was bold enough to say that the County Sheriff had always provided Police services and as far as he was concerned, they always would. He needed no alternative. Councilman Robinson was even more specific. He “absolutely guaranteed” no better service for a less expensive price could be found, so he didn’t want us to waste our time looking for one.

Mayor Pro Tem Hamilton, a CPA by profession, was unconcerned with the $5 Billion pension liabilities that OCSD faced, because we were free to cancel the contract and avoid the liabilities as they are realized in the future. Yet without any competitive bids, how could we extract ourselves from OCSD the next time they want to pile on a $875,000 increase?

On July 21, my colleagues voted against getting competitive bids on the newsletter printing and mailing contract ($96,000 per year) and instead automatically renewed the existing contract. (Click here for my article on that subject). What’s even worse in this case is that the existing contract is from an Anaheim company and the company asking to submit a competitive bid was a Lake Forest company. How can we allow this? We should be giving preferences to Lake Forest businesses and individuals because when we spend our money at home, we get the advantages of increased revenue from sales tax and the bottom line spending.

I’m going to ask my colleagues to put their money where their mouth is. If they are really “business friendly” and if they have the best interests of the City in their hearts, I’m going to ask that we enact a policy that gives preference to our local businesses and individuals.

SUMMARY

Considered separately, no one of these actions (or, more accurately “inactions”) means anything, but put together and examined, we can see the trend. It seems to me that my colleagues have not been good stewards of the public purse. We have not emphasized competitive bidding and we have not done anything to keep our spending at home. Where it’s been possible, we haven’t looked for ways to cut costs, and in some cases we are spending more for the convenience of the elected and appointed officials. This isn’t what I expect when people tell me they are “fiscal conservatives”.

Tomorrow let’s look at a different but parallel trend.

COMMENTS

It came to my attention that at times the COMMENTS section of the Patch doesn’t work. I have no control over this. I can neither enable or disabled the Comments section nor can I delete or edit other people’s work. If you encounter this problem, please notify the Patch. If you want to discuss the issues raised in these articles you’re welcome to join nearly 300 of us at Lake Forest Town Square, or you can e-mail me individually, come to my office hours, or attend my Town hall meetings.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 3 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on August 15 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.

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