public comments by mike russo

I just drafted a letter summing up all the above and more, but since the next Joint Meeting of the Town and Village is tomorrow [1/15/13], when Q&A takes place, much of what I wrote may already be discussed. I'm wondering if some of the supporting documents to the savings claims will be made available at tomorrow's meeting.

1. The single largest cost savings line in the Expenditures spreadsheet is comprised from a collection of DPW and Highway item lines. The total savings is stated as $520,077. This figure seems unrealistically high for savings realized by consolidation, since regardless of whether we have one or two governments, we still have the same number of roads to be plowed and repaired, and the same number of vehicles, more or less, to be maintained. Consolidating to one garage will save a limited amount of money. So how will this cost savings be realized?  Note: I would like to ask follow-up questions in person in regard to this question.
2. Regarding Line items A3120.1&2&4, why is a $300,000 reduction in police expenditures being counted as consolidation savings when the annotation states "reduced due extenuating circumstances in 2011, no longer anticipate"? That brief note seems to imply that the $300,000 reduction has been already taken place, and has nothing to do with whether or not consolidation takes place. Please clarify.
3. The Fiscal Committee report contains a sentence that reads "Please note: The consolidated budget presented reflects personnel adjustments already made in the 2013 adopted Town Budget, and therefore, there are minimal employee impacts (except for elected personnel)." This statement suggests to me that labor savings that has already been initiated in the Town per its 2013 Budget is being presented erroneously in the report as savings that would be obtained by means of consolidation. Those 2013 personnel adjustments should show up as a correction line in the cost analysis and not be included in the tally for savings due to consolidation, yet I see no such correction. This leads me to believe that those personnel adjustments that are already in place and unrelated to consolidation, are nevertheless being included as savings in the various labor lines and the labor-related lines, such as A9010.8, A9030.8, A9040.8, A9060.8. Please clarify.
4. Line item A1420.4 Law expenditures in 2011 for the village and town were about $58,997 and $115,484 respectively, so how could consolidation result in a reduction of these costs to $95,000, a much lower amount than the Town’s costs alone? On what possible basis relating to consolidation, would legal costs drop by 45%?
5. Line item A1440.4 Engineer is being cut from $137,071 in combined 2011 expenditures to $50,000. Such a decrease seems unrealistic. Furthermore, since the village had less than $2,000 in 2011 costs, why would this $86,971 in cost reduction be counted as savings due to consolidation.
6. The consolidation of Treasurer, Personnel/Payroll and Bookkeeping/Budget (A1325.1, A1340.1, A1430.1) is shown as yielding a 25% savings. That seems highly optimistic. Since this line is primarily labor and related, what are the specifics in terms of job roles and costs of the analysis of the combined workloads that determined that 25% of the tasks are duplicative of town and village?
7. Line item A1680.4 Data Processing shows consolidation savings estimated at $25,650, a 33% reduction. While one would expect that consolidation will realize savings in Data Processing costs, the total number of workstations and software user licenses will not decrease; therefore this seems like unrealistically high reduction in costs. What are the specifics in terms of item and dollar costs that would result in a reduction of 33% in costs?
8. Line item A1650.4 is Town Central Communications Contractual, for which the entire $40,535 of expenditures is in the Savings column because, according to the spreadsheet note, this item is absorbed by consolidation into Line A1680.4 Data Processing. But since Data Processing expenditures is already reduced by 33%, it would seem that expenditures for this Central Communications line item are being completely eliminated. Is this an accurate assumption? What are the individual components of this line’s $40,535 costs? How much of the savings would directly relate to consolidation?
9. This question is to be posed to the members of the Town and Village Boards. Many arguments could be advanced as to why consolidation may be good for our community. But the likely assumption is that for most voters, the tax rates issue is going to be front and center- they will vote for consolidation if there's the promise of significant reduction of taxes. That's why the financial picture of consolidation has to addressed with the upmost of care. Most people are too busy or not comfortable to delve deep in the analysis of double-checking and questioning the figures given to them by public officials, even if they are provided full information. As elected officials, you are charged with the public trust, with the responsibility to present a fair and clear assessment of what savings would be obtained by the consolidation of the Village and Town governments. I must admit that I am surprised and troubled by the many flaws, inaccuracies and obfuscations that appear to be present in the Expenditures spreadsheet and by the stridency of the Fiscal Committee’s report and recommendation made on the
   basis of this problematic analysis. I am further troubled by the sharp contrast of the Fiscal Committee's
   high figure for savings due to consolidation as compared with the 2011 Fairweather study, which on
   pages 23-24 (of version 2.1) suggests that savings due to consolidation is likely to be modest, and
   states "This reiterates the concept that restructuring through consolidation is not an effective means in
   overall reduction of the cost of local government." What will happen, if consolidation is approved and
   then it turns out that the expert consultants, in fact, were right? Therefore, I ask of all Town and Village elected officials: Will you agree to retain a reputable accounting firm to perform a professional grade report on the cost savings analysis using current budgets and cost projections, before scheduling any referendum on the issue of consolidation?
10. In approaching the Fiscal Committee’s report and Expenditure spreadsheet, two Basic Principles of Accounting come to mind, those of Full Disclosure and Conservatism. The Full Disclosure principle holds that all past, present and future information that may have had an impact on the financial performance needs to be fully disclosed. The Conservatism principle holds when choosing between two solutions, the one that will be least likely to overstate assets and income should be picked. My examination of the Fiscal Committee’s report and Expenditure spreadsheet suggests that neither of these tenets have been observed. My questions with regard to Full Disclosure are: 1) When will supporting documentation for all material line item savings be made available to the public? 2)Why was this documentation not made immediately available along with the Report and Expenditures spreadsheet so that ample time was available to the public to properly critique the Report? My question with regard to Conservatism is:  Will you endorse the idea of retaining a reputable Accounting Firm to ascertain the accuracy of your figures in regard to estimated savings obtained from consolidation, and to perform similar analysis on current year budgets and cost projections?