fresno elections 2008

The County needs to model its system on the City of Fresno Retirement System. While the City’s program is not as generous as the County’s program, it is fair, sustainable and wellmanaged. While the incumbent District 2 Supervisor claims the County’s retirement plan is “robust,” I maintain that given the County’s current budget crisis, future retirees may not be able to receive the same retirement benefits as current retirees do.

The County and the City should consolidate services where appropriate, freeze raises and freeze hiring until the County
has a balanced budget and services are restored to appropriate levels. Priorities need to be established and adhered to, and Supervisors’ salaries -- currently $106,000 (an increase of $40,000 since 2001 without citizen input)--should be capped.

I have suggested a public safety tax to provide funding for police and fire, to free up money so other essential services can continue to be funded. Right now, health and safety issues are so critical, they have to be funded leaving little or no general fund monies for other services; e.g., library, child protective services, mental health, etc. I believe a public safety tax may be the only way the County can adequately fund protective services while continuing other important services. However, a public safety tax must be predicated on a “scrubbed” county budget, transparent fiscal reporting and a review and recommendation by a citizen commission.

First of all, the County doesn’t get a “bye” because the State may give the County less money. The County should have planned for less State monies. The Mayor and City Council planned for this and have given mid-year fiscal reports to the public, maintained the City’s multi-million dollar reserve, worked closely with employees to negotiate reasonable contracts and will deal with the Governor’s budget. In contrast, it is irresponsible governance on the part of the County Supervisors to grant 10% raises to 60% of County employees when the County is in serious financial straits. During the last County budget cycle, it was surprising to hear our County “leaders” say, “The County is broke,” and it is an “ENRON” budget. Where is the leadership???!!! I refer you to the” 2007/2008 Fresno Chamber County Budget Task Force Recommendations and Findings.” This was an outstanding analysis and excerpts are included below. A common concern of the analysis was that “the fiscal future of Fresno County might be at risk unless there were some major changes in the budgeting process and cost structure.”

General Comments/Budget Process
Findings:
• Structural organization of the County: Not all department heads report to the CAO, resulting in a lack of consistent direction and accountability
• It appears that the current budget process promotes silos rather than a fully integrated process that recognizes the impact a decision in one department has on another; effective two-way communications are missing.
• County budget uses one-time dollars for ongoing projects, a procedure that is not fiscally responsible.
• County budgets are generated in July each year and are not rolled into a five year forecast to determine future costs of current actions.
• Labor costs are the largest component in every department’s budget.
• Current and future retirement costs are a major area that needs to be addressed.
Recommendations:
• Consider investing in an outside consultant to revamp the budget development process.
• Change budget process to zero-based budgeting where all activities must be justified and have appropriate levels of funding; identify real and ongoing revenue for expenses.
o The CAO should recommend budgeting parameters to the Board of Supervisors for their review/approval
o Project revenue and identify expenditures
o Balance budget without using concept of “open” positions
o Require consistent process/format for all departments
• Use benchmarking as a process to improve the budget process and to compare the budget with other counties in California. Determine which counties in California have the best budgeting
process.
• Use benchmarking to identify and establish best-practices by department; department heads should take on that task in an effort to streamline operations and control costs while enhancing services.
• Eliminate the use of one-time monies to fund ongoing programs or positions.
• Combine adult and mental health agencies to enhance services and streamline administration and costs.
• Require a 5-year rolling forecast as part of an annual budget, providing visibility of impact of commitments on future budgets. Report to Board of Supervisors quarterly.
• Use wage and salary survey from the private sector to determine competitive salaries/wages.
• The CAO’s office to project the total revenue for the next budget year and build the budget to that number.
• CAO to make recommendations to Supervisors to review/approve actual dollars available for union negotiations
o Convert to interest-based (principle-based) negotiations, i.e. identify stakeholders, problems, interests, negotiate for mutual gains; eliminates positional bargaining.
Public Safety/Sheriff’s Budget
Findings:
o Personnel costs are 83% of entire budget which is driven by union negotiations
o There is an increase of 20% in personnel costs from 2007 to 2008 budget, increasing the Sheriff’s budget by $20 million
o Applaud Sheriff’s action to hire outside consultant to analyze and audit her department to establish benchmarks compared to other best-practice sheriff organizations.
Recommendations:
o Increase the number of Federal inmates the County can house in jail from current 250. The department is losing $1 million per year in revenues due to a reduction of Federal inmates from 400 to 250 in 2007.
o Consider outsourcing medical services, jail services, hospital guard services and physical services; put out for RFP’s.
o Hire an analyst specifically for contract oversight and RFP’s.
o Develop a 5 year forecast for the Sheriff’s department and update each quarter
o Address issues of salary compaction between management and line employees
o Implement a streamlined hiring process to allow Sheriff to hire Academy graduates
Personnel Department
Findings:
o Wage and salary payroll is 40% of County budget
o Multiple union contracts are negotiated on an annual basis
o Minimum direction from the Board of Supervisors regarding percentage settlement limits for each contract
o Contracts settled in 2006/2007 resulted in cost increases of 10% which is far greater than private industry.
Recommendations:
o Use competitive wage and salary surveys from both 13-County and local private industry
o Consider going to a defined contribution plan vs. defined benefit pension plan to manage future retirement expenses. The majority of the private industry has converted to defined contribution plans to control future costs.
o Define clear reporting lines to CAO to ensure/promote accountability, i.e. Personnel reports to CAO; CAO reports to Board. Direction should be established accordingly
o Streamline the hiring process to fill open positions more timely and to provide opportunity for Sheriff to hire Academy graduates, competing with Clovis and other entities
• Negotiations:
• Include private sector representation in the negotiation process
• Consider a new format for negotiations to provide greater transparency and Supervisor review prior to signing.
• Cost out possible scenarios, showing impact for 5 years
• Implement interest-based negotiations (principle based)
• Negotiate based on actual staffing needs; eliminate approach that you can negotiate higher increase by eliminating planned positions (why are those positions budgeted if not needed?)
• Identify issues of equity between small and large represented groups
• Consider renegotiating contracts to reduce salary and benefits to a level the County can responsibly support.
• Conduct analyses and address annually:

The County certainly does not have the money to build new jail facilities at this time. It is unfortunate that the County did not have the foresight when it built the juvenile facility to allocate some of those monies for a juvenile courthouse or a new jail. The $147 million expenditure for the juvenile facility was an excessive amount to spend with no court facility attached. The County currently pays $900,000/year to transport juveniles to court in the City of Fresno.

Instead of building another expensive jail, I would consider contracting for services for low-risk inmates. I also suggest we look at existing available vacant buildings such as the former Spaghetti Factory on R Street. These buildings could be “rehabbed” for low-risk inmates for considerably less cost than building a new facility.

Construction needs exist because the County Board has failed to do anything about them before there is a crisis. For years the County Board has been a reactive body – never planning for future needs. The only reason the juvenile facility was built was because of the negative publicity (“Hall of Shame”) about the old facility. The County should have prioritized, budgeted and planned for the new construction needs with a dedicated building reserve fund. What we need to do now is establish priorities and start developing a building reserve fund. I believe the ag, food and safety center, as well as the morgue, needs to be co-located. It also should be done in conjunction with the City of Fresno. The offices for County employees are of less importance and can wait out the budget crisis.
Eventually, offices should be co-located with City of Fresno employees for efficiency and better service to the public.

The Williamson Act is a wonderful asset for Fresno County, and we should work to preserve it. Unfortunately, I doubt the County can make up the deficit if the Governor eliminates the reimbursement. I suggest we direct our energies toward the regional 2050 Metro Loop Plan because this visionary plan will help us designate and save essential agricultural land.

I am strongly supportive of the Economic Development Corporation and its new leadership. I also want to continue the Regional Jobs Initiative because it coordinates local resources and then ties those same resources in with the State Legislature and the Federal Government.

The City of Fresno is essentially doing the same thing. The City and County should be working together to share costs and benefits instead of operating at potentially cross purposes. This is a perfect example where consolidation of services would be of great benefit.

I know there is a demand for inpatient psychiatric services for children and a demand for housing for the mentally ill. Again, there is currently no money to build a new facility for these programs. However, I would work with Community Medical Centers that currently operates the adult facility – Community Behavioral Health – to see if they could expand services. While this may have been explored in the past, talks could be renewed to see the viability of such programs.

Debt is acceptable and necessary as long as it can be handled in the worst of economic times. The County’s debt is probably at an acceptable level, but additional debt should not incurred until the budget is stable, a reserve has been created, budget transparency exists, an elected County Executive is in place, and other governance reforms have been enacted.

Development cannot take precedence over adequate water resources. No water, no development.