Fiscal reproach

There’s little doubt that Mark Orme is one of Chico’s busiest public servants. By most accounts, the city manager scrambles from meeting to meeting as he leads the effort to right Chico’s financial ship—and also address issues like public safety, park staffing and maintaining the urban forest.

But, as it emerged during the Chico City Council’s annual budget session on Tuesday (June 16), Orme has been going it alone, handling secretarial duties such as answering phones, scheduling his own meetings and greeting members of the public as they drop by his office.

“I have never, in my whole career—and I believe I’ve worked in some creative organizations—seen the CEO of an organization scheduling and answering phones,” said City Clerk Debbie Presson. “I won’t speak to whether [Orme] can be effective in that manner, but I would say I’d gladly give up my position to make sure he gets the assistance he needs.”

By “my position,” Presson didn’t mean her own job, but rather the administrative assistant her office applied for in the city’s 2015-16 budget. Grappling with increasing workloads and short staffs has been the reality for Orme, Presson and most heads of departments since the cuts enacted by former City Manager Brian Nakamura slashed the city to the bone in the summer of 2013.

Councilman Randall Stone adamantly argued that city staff’s current struggles are tied to recent contract negotiations, making an obvious reference to the memorandum of understanding the city signed with the Chico Police Officers’ Association in April. It provided pay raises to current officers that will cost the city a total of $1.5 million over three years. (The contract was approved by the council in a 5-1 vote, with Stone dissenting and Councilwoman Tami Ritter absent.) Stone lamented that, while the city saved $4 million in employee salary concessions and layoffs, “we brought back $1.5 million to a single department.”

“When we make contract decisions like that, it impacts the rest of the city. … That’s why we don’t have tree crews, why the CEO of the organization is answering his own phone calls,” he said. “It’s inexcusable.”

Overall, the city’s fiscal outlook has improved significantly since “the darkest time for the city of Chico,” as Nakamura characterized his cuts in 2013. The city’s general fund deficit, once greater than $15 million, has been trimmed to $4.5 million. And there are indications that the local economy has turned a corner—building permit requests have greatly increased, Orme said, and sales tax revenues have resumed growth.

Administrative Services Director Frank Fields emphasized a methodical and cautious approach to fiscal recovery, praising the council’s conservative spending in 2014-15, during which the city had budgeted to direct $800,000 toward the deficit but ultimately paid down $3 million of debt.

And while Fields noted that the city’s general fund reserve is still zero, he remained optimistic.

“In the worst-case scenario, come 2019-20 we actually have a reserve,” he predicted. “More practically speaking, I think in two years we have a reserve.”

Here’s how the city of Chico’s $109.7 million budget for 2015-16 breaks down:

A total of $87 million is appropriated for operating funds—the cost of personnel salaries and benefits, materials and supplies, and outside services purchased. The city will add 12.75 new positions, some part-time—four police officers and two police sergeants, along with a police records technician, a code enforcement officer, a community services officer, an administrative assistant in the city clerk’s office, an executive assistant in the city manager’s office, an administrative analyst in community development, an associate civil engineer, and a maintenance worker. Additionally, one part-time park ranger will become full time.

Meanwhile, a total of $22.7 million is set aside for capital improvement projects such as the widening of Highway 32, nitrate pollution mitigation, a dispatch system for police, a ladder truck for the fire department, preliminarily engineering and design for the eventual reconstruction of Sycamore Pool, and rehabilitation of Upper Park Road.

The council approved the budget on a 4-3 vote, with Councilmembers Ann Schwab, Ritter and Stone dissenting. All three expressed concerns with adding new positions (Schwab’s motion to approve the budget without adding the administrative assistant position to the city clerk’s office failed to garner a second), while Ritter protested moving forward on capital projects without full information on the long-term needs of the city.

“Maybe we can do some long-range planning for what you anticipate in the next year, the next three years, the next five years, so we know what we’re funding now,” Ritter said. “It’s hard to prioritize when we don’t even know what projects are out there.”

Orme said he’s seen other cities that compile lists of anticipated capital projects 10 and 20 years into the future, but expressed concern about devoting staff time to such a task when most departments are grappling with immediate projects. However, he agreed to come before the council with a list of upcoming capital improvement projects at a future meeting.

The budget also earmarked a total of $109,205 for community block grants, down from about $117,000 last year, though it was the council’s discretion to tweak exactly how the funding was divvied up. This year, nine organizations—each of which had to apply for a minimum of $15,000—were considered for funding. Six would be awarded $15,000 and one would be awarded $19,205.

When it became apparent that the Disability Action Center and Do-It Leisure would be the odd organizations out, Vice Mayor Sean Morgan proposed making an exception to the $15,000 minimum by diverting $5,000 from the Community Action Agency and $5,000 from Legal Services of Northern California and directing that money to Disability Action Center and Do-It Leisure.

Housing Manager Marie Demers recommended against Morgan’s proposal because “we excluded an organization for not requesting $15,000,” she said. Morgan’s proposal met with further resistance from Schwab and Ritter, who suggested diverting funding to emergency service providers, such as Catalyst Domestic Violence. Councilman Andrew Coolidge then argued that the “whole process is flawed,” and suggested an across-the-board decrease of funding to all organizations to proportionally reflect the city’s financial situation.

Morgan himself seemed resigned that his proposal would fail. “Call the question so we can vote this down,” he said. Nevertheless, it passed 4-3, with Coolidge, Ritter and Schwab dissenting.