The Budget (6/18/22)

Well, the budget has passed by a 4-1 vote. I was the one who voted against it. Here’s why:

1. First and foremost, I’m uncomfortable growing the budget by 20% (from $16.6 million to $19.8 million.) It’s great that our revenues are growing, but I’d like to be more cautious. Keep in mind that these are PROJECTED revenues… not guarantees.
2. I’m not comfortable hiring 6 new employees. There’s too much uncertainty in the world right now.
3. I don’t like the reliance on parking revenue. We’re banking on over $1 million more revenue than last year. A bold assumption. This includes $140,000 more from citations. I didn’t support changing the 2022 parking program (see my blog post about it here) but at the same time I don’t want to get addicted to the citation money.

Click here for the budget summary

LET’S GET TO WORK

I voted against it, but WE passed it. It’s my budget now, so I support it and will do my part to make it successful. Want a rugby analogy? You got it:

In college I played rugby (I think Joe Benson was on the butterfly collecting team or something like that.) I played a position similar to running back. I was pretty good and I wanted the ball. But after much debate we decided to kick more and my job was to chase the ball down and make tackles. So what did I do? Did I chase the ball half-heartedly to prove that the strategy was bad? Hell no! I ran it down with everything I had! Weekdays were for arguing about a game plan. Saturdays were about executing the plan we decided on… no matter how I felt.

And man, there’s a lot to execute. Road paving, CB Lake dredge, stormwater improvements, water/sewer improvements, a sidewalk on Ocean Blvd, a multi-use path on St. Joseph St, 4.5 miles of street paving, Canal Drive improvements, marina repair, a playground for CB Lake, crosswalk at Spartanburg, the Freeman Park purchase… if we’re successful it will be a great year for Carolina Beach. I will do my small part.

Allow me to address some comments I received:

You should pass this budget because Bruce Oakley (Town Manager) is great. You shouldn’t question his judgement.

It’s my job to question his judgement. Setting parameters for the size and scope of our government is absolutely the role of Town Council. Bruce is a fine administrator, but if I don’t like his budget then I’m not going to vote for it. Am I supposed to just rubber stamp everything he does? I think not.

You should pass this budget because it’s already June.

This was the first chance I had to vote. State law allows us until June 30 to approve a budget. If it hadn’t passed, Bruce would have made some changes and brought it back to us at a special meeting (or our regularly scheduled workshop.) I won’t be bullied into passing something I don’t like because it’s inconvenient.

You should never vote against more fireman.

The 6 new employees were 3 new fireman and 3 administrative staff. I asked Bruce to cut it back to 3 new employees total, and he can decide where they’re needed most. That being said, the fire department added 3 employees in 2018, 3 more in 2021 and now 3 more in 2023. How much is too much? I won’t pretend to be certain. But what if they were asking for 6 more? 9 more? How much is enough?

I acknowledge these immutable facts – we have more buildings, more people, more emergency calls and more restrictions on how the firemen do their job. We have fewer volunteers. (People just don’t volunteer like they used to.) The days of an all-volunteer fire department are over. We’re transitioning to an all-professional department.

With that being said, I asked Bruce to limit the hiring to 3 employees in total… and he can decide if firefighters should be 1, 2 or 3 of them.

3 Final Thoughts on the Process

1. I’d like to move the timeline up. Next year I’ll ask for a draft budget and budget summary by May 1 with a budget hearing at the May Council meeting. Give the public a chance to digest it before the budget hearing. We had a special budget workshop on May 3 this year, but there wasn’t enough information for the public. (In my opinion.)
2. I liked that we held a budget open house (even though the attendance was poor.) But again, we should have had more specific information.
3. I liked the 2-day budget retreat in January, but we should consider an evening or weekend as part of the event. Let the working public be present.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Here’s What I Wrote BEFORE the Budget Was Passed (6/12/22)

We’ll be voting on a budget for fiscal year 22/23 on Tuesday night. (6/14)

For the uninitiated, the fiscal year runs from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023. This is consistent with most state and local governments, a tradition I suspect started because working on budgets during the Christmas holidays would be cumbersome. (But I have no proof to back this up.) This can be awkward for a beach town because the summer season gets split into two different budgets. But such is life.

These 3 links provide important information:

Manager’s Budget Overview
Coastal Town Comparisons
Town Staffing Levels

Here’s how the process has played out:

Jan 27 & 28        

We had a 2-day budget retreat (I used vacation time to attend.) Each department head presented their priorities/projects/requests. We went through various exercises to determine our priorities as Council. They are as follows: infrastructure, communication, quality of life, fiscal responsibility.

These priorities can be mutually exclusive, so it ain’t always easy. For instance, you can always axe a Parks & Rec program in the name of fiscal responsibility. Do you use money to build a sidewalk… or to replace an aging pipe? W e can’t do everything.

May 3

We held a Tuesday morning budget workshop. The hottest topic was discussing the Fire Department and their request to add 3 firefighters to the payroll, at a cost of $370,000/year. We had a few citizens in attendance, but they hadn’t yet seen much information, so it was difficult for them to make relevant comments.

That night we held a budget open house, with staff from each department attending to explain their goals. Three people attended if I remember correctly.

May 5

We received our first budget from Town Manager Bruce Oakley. This included recommendations from staff along with cuts he made, the next year’s fee schedule and staffing levels from the last 9 years. This is when I learned that Bruce recommends adding 3 new admin positions… finance, HR and Communications. I was expecting one new position.

May 10

At our regular Council meeting we had a public hearing to discuss the budget. One person spoke and his main point was that he couldn’t access the same information that we (The Council) had.

May 16

To Bruce’s credit, every time I asked for more information I got it quickly. I asked for comparisons to the previous budgets (proposed and actual.)

May 23

We received the “Manager’s Budget Message” which is a written overview of the proposed budget.

May 24

We discussed the budget again at our monthly workshop. I asked Chief Griffin of the Fire Department to explain once again his need for 3 new employees (because I’m apparently not smart enough to keep up!)  It goes something like this:

• They currently have 4 people on duty at any given time
• You need 3 people to send out the big engine truck
• You need 2 people to send out the ladder truck
• So if they want to send out both trucks, they have to wait for a volunteer, the Chief or the Assistant Chief
• By adding 3 people they can make each shift a group of 5 and they can send out both trucks immediately

We have a community rating of 2 on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is the best and 10 is the worst. This is quite good for a town our size… and it saves us money on our insurance. Investing in a great fire department pays off.

I again voiced my concerns about adding more staff in general.

June 8

I asked Bruce to provide me with information about our current large projects. He did so and it opened my eyes. We have a lot of big things going on, and most of them rely on grants that are time-consuming to report on. It helped me see the value in adding to our finance team. I don’t want to be stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.

GOING FORWARD

So here we are. Tuesday, June 14 we will vote. Here are my concerns:

• The budget is increasing by 20% from $16.55 million to $19.78 million.
• The parking revenues are estimated to rise $1.2 million (it feels quite optimistic to me and I don’t love the reliance on fines.)
• We want a healthy fund balance. It’s currently at 40%, but what happens to it as the budget increases? We’re adding $3 million to the budget, so if we were to maintain the fund balance of 40% wouldn’t we then have to dedicate 40% of the new money to it?
• We added 3 new firefighters in 2018 and 3 more in 2021. Is now really the time? Should we wait another year or two? Would adding just one firefighter help?
  This is a tough decision for me. It’s easy to say “You must support the fire department!” But what if they were asking for 6 new employees? Or 10? How much is appropriate?
• Do we really need 3 more administrative staffers? Someone said to me “Aren’t you worried about staff burnout?” No. I’m not. Our Assistant Manager, Planning Director and Operations Director have all been here for 20 years. We don’t have heavy turnover in Carolina Beach. I’d say we’re a good place to work.

CONCLUSION

I don’t have a conclusion. I’ve spent plenty of time studying the numbers, talking with staff, talking with citizens and talking with other Council Members that’s for sure. But I don’t know if 3 people will agree with the budget as presented. If we don’t pass it, then staff will go back to the drawing board, make some changes and bring it back to us.

If that’s the way it happens, then so be it. It’s a process.