Last night there was a Special Commission meeting to discuss
the budget overruns on the two building projects. This was requested by Commissioner
Anderson as the original item (regular April Commission meeting) was placed
near the end of the agenda and due to the late hour, few residents would have
been there to hear it. But, before we take a step forward… we must first take a
step back to understand the situation and problems that arose from what looks
to be a lack of fiscal oversight.
In advance of the April meeting (disclosed in the backup), it
was discovered that the alleged total for both buildings was $1,800,147.24. To
repeat, one million eight hundred thousand dollars! I use the word “alleged “due to the fact it appears that
there were project expenses (such as the landscaping for the log cabin and
others) that were not included in the reconciliation. Why? Beats me.
The data provided in the reconciliation statements is very confusing,
but regardless, the point remains the same. To that end Chuck Ross has
reconstructed the numbers for both projects and listed below is a brief overview.
First, adding back the
$89,000.00 fee for the architect (that somehow was missed in the manager’s feasibility study
to borrow the $350K loan- how does that happen?) and the adjusted contingencies, we started out the project underfunded
by $126,891.00 [7.64%] back in May, 2015. This was before we ever broke ground.
As to the cost overrun, Chuck is coming up with $161,216.00 or [8.85%] The funding shortage of $126,891.00
was the leading cause of the $161,216.00 overall shortage. There were
unexpected post construction credits and grants that reduced the shortage by
$34,600.00 to $126,616.00 - not the $115,213.24 [6%] as claimed by the manager
in her report.
However, as mentioned above, there are some costs yet to be identified.
To reflect a shortage of $115,123.24 net of the unexpected credits and
omitting certain costs is misleading. Clearly the planning
was suspect.
Two points to learn from this:
First, the manager should have recalculated the
funding requirements after the final bids for the Log Cabin project had
been accepted. The error (funding shortage) would likely have been discovered
and adjustments would have been made to the project.
Second, the manager did not report
to the Commission the change orders as the project progressed. Again, the
error would likely have been discovered.
Since the Commission was not made
aware of the additional costs, they did not have the opportunity to assess
changes that could or should be made to the project to take into account the
additional funds required to complete the project.
Total
expenditures Village Hall= $969,909.80
Total
expenditures Log Cabin= $830,237.44
Again, this is assuming that the reconciliation total costs
are complete and accurate. This number was a shocker as how many residents even knew about the budget for the two buildings? I know that Commissioner Ross had
been asking for progress reports and financial updates for many months only to be delayed by the
manager. It was never fully
disclosed to the public (taxpayers) until again, months after the fact.
And herein lays part of the problem. Where was the fiduciary responsibility from both the manager and our Commissioners
during the process? Why was there no degree of any fiscal restraint
when the budget overruns were first discovered? And who was responsible for signing off on all of this overage?
Section 4.07. - Appropriation
amendments during the fiscal year.
(B) If, at any time during the fiscal year, it appears probable to the
Manager that the revenues available will be insufficient to meet the amounts
appropriated, s/he shall report to the Commission in writing without delay,
indicating the estimated amount of the deficit, and his/her recommendations as
to the remedial action to be taken. The Commission shall then take such
action, as it deems appropriate, to
prevent any deficit spending not covered by adequate unappropriated financial
resources including reserves.
In short, this just didn’t happen. This wasn’t an
“option” but a Charter requirement. The manager did not publicly address the
budget overages, without delay, and instead ostensibly just made her own
decision to keep spending unappropriated Village funds. Nor was this Charter
requirement adhered to on another potential cost overrun of approx. 50% (over the
grant amount) towards the new Village Signage. (half of which, by the way, have
not been installed due to running out of money by the inclusion of solar lighting that somehow got added to the
project after the fact. Solar lighting within our dense tree canopy… was this a good idea?) Especially after
just running over budget on your prior project? Do
you see a trend here?
It seems as if our Commissioners bought into the paradigm of “not
micromanaging the manager” to the degree of simply providing no fiscal management or institutional oversight
at all! Or, in fairness, of potentially being rebuked by the manager if
efforts were indeed attempted citing “I’m
the professional here, don’t micromanage me,” etc. Further, there seems to
be some misunderstanding of what the term “micromanaging” means.
Definition
of micromanage
To try to control or manage all the
small parts of (something, such as an activity) in a way that is usually not
wanted or that causes problems
Definition
of oversight
Watchful and responsible care b: regulatory supervision
See the
difference? But for whatever the reason, blind
trust was offered and we now bear the cost for such lack of judgement. For me it's the process, poor planning, and the lack
of transparency of not informing everyone what these buildings were actually
costing us... until it was too late. The bottom line is always what is
this going to cost us – the Biscayne Park taxpayers.
We hired a first-time manager who had over the past
year demonstrated varying concerns regarding both her attitude and work
performance. These concerns were shared with our Mayor and other Commissioners,
yet were seemingly overlooked. Remarkably, some STILL seem to want to overlook these problems. Per her employment
agreement “The Village Commission agrees to annually review the performance of
the Village Manager prior to the anniversary date of this Contract.” This
should have been done prior to last October… yet it didn’t happen. Why?
In my opinion this is cause for concern moving
forward. Trust should be earned over a period of time based on deeds and
performance… not just given freely to any new Village employee.
I can only hope that we’ve learned a hard lesson
based on this experience as we now move on to our next manager. (Oh, and sorry
for burying the lead, for anyone who didn’t already know, our manager has
resigned effective April 29th.)
Which leads me to this:
Don’t
Shoot the Messenger! The messenger is NOT the problem… The Problem is The Problem.
Deal with it and shoulder the responsibility you chose when you sought public
office.
To suggest that our residents that pointed out legitimate
concerns about the manager were The Problem is in truth, well… insulting.
Insulting and delusional. Deflecting Problems does not solve The Problem. Pointing
out Problems does not create The Problem. Lack of action only further increases
The Problem. Our residents have every right to expect better results and
representation from our elected officials.
The manager will soon be gone, yet we remain to
pick up the pieces. It’s time for our leaders to lead.
Standing Watch-
Milton Hunter
The Biscayne
Parker
miltonhunter@gmail.com
P.S. The videos of the April meetings are now up on YouTube.
Links below:
