By: Diane Benjamin
Below are 2 charts from the budget documents on the City of Bloomington website. Both recap spending just for Administration.
The first chart can be found it: http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=2016 Page 143
The second chart can be found at: http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8224 Page 118
Total Admin spending:
2011 $590,415.95 Actual
2012 $668,452.00 Projected
2013 $884,179.00 Proposed
2014 $1,065,611 Actual
2015 $1,447,000 Projected
2016 $1,256,932 Proposed
The administration budget has more than doubled since 2011!
What are you getting for over $1.2 million a year? ($1.4 this year!)
A list of the Admin accomplishments was included this year. (See pages 116-117 – http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8224)
Look at the following 2 pages. I only see a couple of things that benefit citizens. What do you see? Maybe you are supposed to celebrate that 2016 is down below the 2015 projected.
One of my favorites is on page one. Want to know why there is no press investigating government? See if you can spot it.
Jimminy Christmas …How did they blow the Benefits budget (2015 Approved Budget vrs. 2015 Projected) by $250,595 (+118% over budget)?
That is NO small miss. Explanation, anyone?
Another question: did the council approve it?
I am sure they did 7-2 as always
Well, they wouldn’t have needed to if it was $20,000 or less for each expenditure, right? (which the council just changed a session or two ago by raising that limit to $50,000 or less, thus neutering their own ability to perform any responsible oversight).
that benefits blow out is the payout for the former HR Director’s accrued benefits. Since those don’t show up as accrued liabilities, they have to expense it when presented with a payout. Since the number is going back down for 2015-2016, they do not budget for benefit payments. They’ll “try” to cover the overage in other areas so the budget is balanced (at the fund level), and they’ll also say they had no choice in the matter, so they can’t (from a performance standpoint) be held accountable for being so out of whack on the projection.
Here’s my problem with it, yes they can. They 100% knew the HR Director was retiring when they adopted the budget. They also 100% knew there would be a substantial accrued benefits payout, yet they 100% ignored it in the adopted budget. Why? Because, it is 100% easier to follow the script of my last sentence, first paragraph, then it is to make cuts required to present a balanced budget for approval which include known costs.
Also, people would be pissed if they had to cut back hours at the library, or push back hiring an officer for FOUR YEARS, to accommodate the benefit payout. (Her payout was something on the order of $200,000+, erego 50k*4).
That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it. Or rather, it got stuck to you.
HR expenses are listed outside of Administration. I’m not buying it. since two of you have mentioned it, I will print HR next.
Fair enough. my compliant still stands, regardless of whether it shows up here or in HR.
The City Clerk also retired, but that’s another account. David Hales has a contract assistant City Manger for much of last year, now he has hired a permanent one. He also hired a Community Development person, it may be in Admin or it may be separate. I’m still paging through all the Departments.