Found dem dang vehicles

I can try to come up with all kinds of excuses for this horrible oversight on my part: old man’s eyes, the small print on page 148 of City Manager Scott Sellers’s proposed FY 2016-17 budget, the fact that my computer monitor is anything but hi-def and even general overall weariness by the time I reached page 148 of the budget.

Be that as it may, I was in error when I wrote yesterday "nary a penny is proposed for heavy or light equipment for Public Works" in the city manager’s proposed budget because the truth is Sellers is seeking a whole lot of pennies — 32,400,000 of them, to be exact — to purchase such items for public works as a bucket truck, an F-150, two f-350 trucks for the construction crew, and a 4x4 backhoe with an extended boom. There’s also funds for such other equipment for public works as an "Okada hoe ram," which, I think, is something along the lines of this; a concrete planer and striping removal system; an emergency generator; and a portable light tower.

That may seem like a lot for $324,000 but it appears Sellers is budgeting some of this in installments to correspond a little more closely to their depreciation, with only one-third of their total costs being applied to upcoming year’s budget.

In the same vicinity where I finally found these items, I also ran across on page 149 a listing of all the equipment proposed from the Utility Fund for wastewater operations, including $125,000 for the first of three payments to purchase a Vactor truck. It also appears Sellers has niftily crafted the budget so that the cost for this truck as well as the cost of an F350 hydraulic truck will be shared with the Water Operations.

Discovering these items makes me feel even better about Sellers’s proposed budget because, unlike adding personnel, these expenditures are, for the most part, one-off items. What I mean by that is that these budgeted items are on the books for this year only. However, anytime you add personnel, that FTE must be fully funded every year thereafter, whether someone occupies the position or not, for as long as the city believes these positions are needed. For example, last year the city council created a number of new positions for police officers and set aside the funds necessary to pay those salaries. However, most of those positions went unfilled, yet that dedicated money must sit there untouched, unusable for providing any other city service. What’s more, that same money must be set aside for those positions in this year’s budget as well as for every budget hereafter for as long as the council believes those positions are necessary. It’s those kind of budget necessities that drive up the tax rate.

By placing the emphasis on equipment purchases rather than additional personnel, Sellers’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, in my opinion, accurately reflects and deals with the city’s pressing needs without unnecessarily and unfairly obligating future city councils. This approach also protects and cushions the city in the event of a recessionary period anytime in the near future.

Having worked in city government for many years in a position that placed me in close proximity to the budget preparation process, I’m willing to bet (although I have absolutely no inside knowledge to prove this) that Sellers had to withstand a lot of pressure from those on the city payroll who were seeking far larger expenditures. Trust me when I say this: It takes a lot of backbone to withstand the type of pressure that can be applied during the preparation of a municipal budget. I was the director of a city department during that time the country when into a recessionary period immediately after 9/11. The city’s sales tax revenues plummeted drastically and the mandate to all departments was "cut, cut, cut expenses." For me to meet my number required me to lay off one-third of my staff. Believe me I fought on behalf of my employees, but I was facing a strong city manager, like Sellers, who looked at the overall "big picture" and made the tough decisions she believed fit the times we were living through.

My only hope now is that the City Council refrains from placing too much additional pressure to change what comes across to me as exactly the right kind of budget for Kyle at this particular moment in time. I don’t mind the council making substitutions to the budget (I use the word "substitutions" because, to keep the budget balanced, for every dollar in expenses added, a dollar from the current budget must be subtracted) that fit both the economic situation and the city’s goals for the future. What I don’t want to see are council members using the budget as a political weapon.

Finally, I would just like to thank that concerned Kyle citizen, who shall remain anonymous, who suggested I examine the budget a little more closely to find dem dang vehicles, the discovery of which allowed me to correct what I erroneously reported yesterday.

Although I know this wish crosses the utopian border, I hope many of Kyle’s citizen taxpayers will also study this proposed budget and then make their concerns and wishes about it known during the citizens comment that will open next Saturday’s city council budget workshop, scheduled to begin at 8 a.m., in the council chambers at city hall.