Back in September, Farmington’s City Council directed the City Staff to cut an additional $100,000 from its budget and asked that it be done by, “rearranging management.” After months of work, according to both the Farmington Independent and Thisweek, the Farmington City Council believes that the City Administrator is unwilling to work with the council to carry out their direction and as such they have lost their trust.
This lack of trust is two fold:
1. The suggestion that franchise fees, which some consider to be unfair, replace traditional assessments for road repair has caused the council and the public to question where the money went from the fund setup for these repairs and whether the new fees collected via franchise fees would have any access controls on it to avoid a similar depletion in the future.
2. Some members of the council do not appreciate the fact that the City Administrator is not carrying out their explicit instructions.
Regarding the franchise fees option and trust of the council, lame duck councilmember Steve Wilson is quoted in the Thisweek article as saying:
“Residents should be aware that by setting up this fund, we got confirmation from the city attorney that the money can be used for any other purpose. So, setting up the fund is inherently dangerous when there’s no trust the city is going to be accountable for it,” Wilson said.
[...]
But now, the fund has been depleted, and franchise fees (additional taxes on utility bills) is the new method staff is promoting to pay for seal coating projects.
According to Thisweek several within the community have argued that there were “millions” in the now depleted fund and this new franchise fee option is being proposed only to create a “slush fund” for future expenditures at the whim of the City Staff and Council.
But even with the worries regarding the franchise fees, the single biggest issue the council has with the City Administrator is that they specifically stated they wanted the staff to “rearrange management” to save $100,000 but when the proposal came before them the reduction in management was not included. Instead the Farmington City Staff had come up with a plan which included reducing staff time on three positions which would have achieved the same goal.
According to this Farmington Independent article this was not acceptable to the council:
Though the $79,500 reduction of staff time and the savings from the police sergeants’ contract would have netted well over $100,000, the solution was not what they were looking for, and they made that well known to Herlofsky.
[...]
On one hand, the proposal would get the budget to where council members would like it to be for 2011; on the other, the plan specifically went against council’s wishes.
One councilmember, who later agreed to eliminate a management position, did note that this move would lower City Staff morale but that the wishes and direction of the council were more important to meet.
What do you think of the Farmington City Council’s recent actions regarding both the franchise fees situation and staffing within City Hall? Do you believe the council was right in ignoring the City Staff’s alternative proposal which would have saved a management position because it did not fit their direction? What do you think about the franchise fees? Are you concerned that it would become a slush fund as some residents have worried it will? Do you wonder where the money went from the original fund? Whatever you have to say about Farmington’s internal trouble go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear what you have to say.
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November 26th, 2010 at 8:38 am
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November 27th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
this brought to mind a scene from The Fifth Element where Zorg is asked by the Council to cool down the economy by firing 500,000 employees. Zorg says to fire 1,000,000.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7VAAKGZMZo&t=1m1s
#1 – The franchise fee is a joke. I sometimes have wondered if it isn’t a ploy by the Donnely Farms and School District to spread the cost of maintaining some of these roads that were built, basically only to service their homes and the high school. Current maintenance programs call for gravel spreading on new roadways after the first couple years, after which a 7 year interval starts. These fees have historically been paid through local levy’s on the property abutting the roadways affected. Changing to franchise fee, cause the road improvements on flagstaff to then be spread across the whole city, and not just the homes there.
The school district chose to build somewhere where there was nothing and thus everything had to be constructed. The lack of development in the area, after the fact is directly due to the shift in the economy. Where normally developers would bear the burden of such improvements, the district and city got stuck with them. My guess is the School, or the Donnely’s want to be on the hook for these roads all on their own.
As far as the failure to chop heads. The council didn’t tell them to do that. And if “arrange management” is now code for fire managers, I guess it’s a good thing that we know that now. Fucking politicians, just say it how you mean it. As for the fund, there better be a clear accounting of it. I wouldn’t hesitate to get the State Auditor involved in it personally. If the Administrator can demonstrate a need within the city (not a want) that would suffer significantly if staff was removed, well then I guess maybe he came up with a good plan. I know that if the city is in a position that they have to cut people to give others a raise, well then that’s bull shit. I would only cut people because they are un-necessary.
November 28th, 2010 at 6:55 am
Farmington does have more than its fair share of problems lately –
- The previous multi-year battle over the new high school
- Ongoing school board issues
- City Council issues
- By far the highest level of foreclosures in the County – I just analyzed townhouse sales for the last 6 months on my blog and 75% of townhouse sales in Farmington have been bank owned or short sales
Hopefully it’s just a current slump but the amount of infighting that goes on there seems to be more than I hear about in other nearby cities.
November 29th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
It seems that the city staff did “rearrange managment.” If the council wanted someone fired, they should have said “fire managment.” Citystaff should get a pat on the back for solving the problem and not adding another unemployeed person. We don’t need any more of those.
December 8th, 2010 at 9:36 am
Farmington’s Council cut the position and pushed off seal coating until they can find a more appropriate way to pay for it:
http://www.farmingtonindependent.com/event/article/id/16010/
http://www.farmingtonindependent.com/event/article/id/16011/
December 8th, 2010 at 11:02 am
I’d like to see the list of neighborhoods that avoid the assessments by this action and if any council members or staff benefit from such a decision or the switching to a franchise fee.
I don’t see any real benefit to this change and since this option was available “forever”, I’m very curious what about this time makes it a good solution.
June 7th, 2011 at 7:01 am
[...] unexpectedly” following a long-running string of issues brought forward by the Council about his choice not to carry out their direction as requested. Unfortunately following a disagreement about the reasons for his resignation a lawsuit was [...]