Barry Allen’s Comments on
The City Council knows how
to spend public money and how to place the City in debt. According to the 2007
Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) the City owes almost ONE HALF
BILLION DOLLARS to bondholders and leasing companies. Add to that the $61,000,000
GWP bond issue this past February. With interest added the $1/2B will be more
like $1,000,000,000. Certainly the amount isn’t paid all at once. Council
member Quintero said there’s lots of money. Council member Najarian
called those questioning the City’s financial issues, “vultures”. If there are
no financial issues, why did the City require departments to make a 5% budget
cut? The Council relies on intimidation to squelch the questions of those who
spend time analyzing the financial issues. Are we just going to watch as the
reserves go down, the salaries and hiring go up and the infrastructure
deteriorates into further decay?
Let’s examine money
transfers from the GWP money machine. Since 2002 the GWP transferred
$134,000,000 from the GWP, which amount came from (y)our
purchases of electricity and water. Then the GWP told the Council that their
infrastructure needed repair. The power plants, the water mains
– all the things necessary to make money for the
City. Council had taken the cash that would have been used for the
infrastructure for “important” things like employee compensation (salaries,
benefits, pensions and post employment benefits). GWP went and borrowed the
money and will pay it off from increased rates. In February they borrowed $61M
and the ratepayers will pay principal and interest of $123M. The question is,
“why does this happen?” It takes just three City Council members to do
Managements’ bidding when it comes to trying to quench the thirst for more
money and less work for many employees that make $100K and more. We have heard
loud and clear from Council members Najarian,
Quintero and Weaver on the subject. They would rather be looking good for those
employees than fiscally responsible to the stakeholders in
Bonds mean
borrowing at whatever interest rate you can get. Not only did the Council
approve borrowing they also approved leasing the last batch of fire apparatus
through SunTrust Leasing that gave the City a line of credit used by the City
to finance $8.25M of the MSB seismic retrofit. The total cost of which is now
about $20M including interest. Council was provided a solution that if followed
would have negated the need for transfer and bonds. Najarian,
Quintero and Weaver were the three “No” votes. By the way, excluding the recent
bond sale…the City will be making P & I payments of almost $20,000,000 this
year.
A reminder to those we elected to mind the
store: the city has an unfunded balance in the fire and police pension
obligation. The figure is staggering, as I recall it is about $60 million.