Saturday, May 16, 2009, 11:32 AM
News, Opinion
By Stephanie Ramage
TURNER KNAPP VISITS THE CITY COUNCIL
Try as I might, I can't be everywhere--especially on Thursday night when the paper goes to press. That being the case, it's nice to have involved citizens like Turner Knapp among the readership. Turner was able to attend last Thursday's budget hearing at City Hall and came up with this brief but entertaining synopsis.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Turner Knapp....
(Wait! One thing: If you love budget stuff, please be sure to read this week's cover story, "
Badges, Bullets and Broken Promises"
http://www.sundaypaper.com/More/Archives/tabid/98/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/4062/Badges-bullets-and-broken-promises.aspx
to see how the city uses, or rather doesn't use, its money.)
TURNER VISITS THE CITY COUNCIL
After 8 years of Atlanta citizenry I decided to register my existence and attend Thursday’s public hearing at City Hall on the 2010 proposed budget.
I have been watchin the citizen pros like Dave Walker and Mr. Duncan lay into the Council day after day on Atlanta Channel 26. I figured, 'How hard can it be?'
I even got a tattoo of the Atlanta City seal on my arm to mark the occasion. (attached)
Let me just say that the Council Chambers are a lot more intimate than they look on TV and I wasn't the only person with the City seal on my arm. There were a lot of Cops, Firefighters and about 20 guards from the Department of Corrections directly in front of me.
Council Members Present: Borders, Shook (facilitator), Muller, Moore, Maddox, Martin and Norwood (Winslow bounced in for a second)
The meeting opened up with a 15 min presentation from Jim Glass (retiring CFO) on the revised 2010 Budget. Here are the major highlights:
1. Ending Furloughs to increase public safety and service at a cost of $18.3M
2. 3 Millage point increase in property taxes
3. Reorganization of the Jail (thus the guard army)
Then we got into the fun stuff. Charts and Graphs. The first one was titled:
"Despite relentless cost reduction, the City's gap is $56 Million"
2010 Revenues - $485 Million
2010 Expenses - $541 Million
GAP ($56 Million)
To see the graph:
http://metrognomeagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/budgetgap2010.jpg
"General Fund spending per capita has fallen by 20%"
FY2001 Spending per Capita = $1200
FY2009 Spending per Capita = $1000
No source for the numbers was given so I tried backing into these using the numbers presented. If our current population is 520,000 and we have experienced a 25% growth then I would expet the 2001 population to be 416,000. (519,000 / 1.25)
I would expect spending to be...
FY2001 Spending = $1200 x 416,000 or $499 Million
FY2009 Spending = $1000 x 520,000 or $520 Million
FY2010 Spending = $1040 x 520,000 or $541 Million (Proposed 2010 Expenses from the first chart)
hummm... that spending per Capita number just went back up.
Then there were like 5 pages of charts comparing us to various cities. There were pointless pie charts showing the giant pacman shaped chuck representing the Public Safety piece of the pie.
Finally we got to the Revenue and Expense pages. There were line graphs by year, well kinda. This note is at the bottom of each report that says:
"Note: 2006 was a half year. 2006 numbers not included in order to highlight trends."
(There is no note explaining why 2010 revenue and expenses are not included.)
The Revenue Chart had the title:
"Since 2002 the City's real revenues are slightly negative even though its population has grown by 25%"
To see the graph go to:
http://metrognomeagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/revenuereport.jpg
(Notes by the author)
("real" doesn't speak to the integrity of the numbers it just means that historical values have been adjusted for inflation. All values from the future are real, make sense? Raise your hand if you hate accounting?)
Actual Revenues
2002 - $424 Million
2009 - $497 Million
Inflation Adjusted Revenues
2002 - $501 Million
2009 - $497 Million
The next chart showed Revenue AND Expenses but guess what. They weren't real.
See:
http://metrognomeagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/expensereport.jpg
I have added the real numbers below so you can see what they would have looked like.
Actual Expenses
2002 - $362 Million
2009 - $523 Million
Inflation Adjusted Expenses
2002 - $429 Million
2009 - $523 Million
I had so many numbers in my head and my notes looked like a Crossword Sudoku hybrid for autistic children.
Lets look at what was said using the “real” numbers.
"Despite relentless cost reduction, the City's gap is $56 Million"
2002 Expenses: $429 Million
2002 Revenues: $501 Million
2002 Gap – $72 Million Surplus!!
2010 Expenses: $541 Million
2010 Revenues: $485 Million
2010 Gap – ($56 Million shortfall)
Real Gap - $128 Million
“The City has significantly improved its expense performance over the last 8 years”
Real Expense Increase - $112 Million
(yeah expenses are on steroids if you asked me)
“The Revenues of the City have been seriously impacted by the economy”
Population Increase – 25%
Real Revenue Decrease – ($16 Million)
“Sales Tax is down 10%, Construction 61% and Tourism 24%.”
(We suck)
Public Speaker Highlights:
Dave Walker has been to every council meeting for the last 25 years and has the long gray beard to show for it. He scoffed at the council’s presentation in grandiose fashion. And then he told the story of the City Seal. My tattoo’s stock just went up. He called on somebody to rise like the Phoenix before we all burn down to the grown….again.
Then all of a sudden all 20 guards from the Department of Corrections stood up at the same time. I thought we were doing the pledge of allegiance so I started standing up and then I realized it was a show of force for their speaker and I wasn’t invited. Woops.
Apparently Corrections isn’t seeing any staff relief from the furlough lifting. The council is proposing reorganization and they weren’t too happy about it. Their union rep opened with something like, “How are you going to reorganize a building whose only function is to store people in boxes?”
Several citizens spoke in disgust about the property tax increase in these times. Couple funny ones and a couple deep seeded angry ones. Wow.
Then a Firefighter Union rep got up and asked for 10 minutes. Shook said no you get 3 like everybody else. Union guy holds up the speaking rules and points out that rule 4 says organizations get 10 minutes. The people’s interpreter CT Martin then chimes in and proceeds to spend 5 minutes trying to recall the language of the rule even though a copy was right in front of him.
Here's a copy for you:
http://metrognomeagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/publichearingrules.jpg
Then Shook and Martin go at it. Felicia Moore steps in and breaks it up and then I think Maddox jumps in and says that the Corrections rep should get more time who wasn’t currently at the podium waiting to speak. Borders and Norwood sat silent like most the Council members running for Mayor. Martin speaks enough for all of them combined.
15 Minutes later the Union rep got his 10 minutes.
Mr. Duncan got everybody to laugh when he thanked Mr. Glass for serving from “One old fart to another old fart.”
Then my number was called…yikes! I walked up there, heart pounding, and have no idea what I said. Something like, “Thanks for serving, these numbers are crap but I can’t prove it, cops mad and people mad is bad, call the state.”