3-Hour Mesa City Council Study Session Thu 18 April 2019

United States Common Sense is a non-profit, non-partisan policy group dedicated to opening government data and resources to the public, developing data-driven policy analysis, and educating citizens about how their governments work.

Did you notice that D1 Councilmember Mark Freeman is getting a lot of "face time" on these screen-grab image uploads to YouTube from Mesa Channel 11?

Guys' clothes statement for the day  = white open collar shirt. Who's wearing that at the 07:30 a.m. Study Session? Does it look like anyone was up-all-night to look at and understand three budgets from three city departments for the next fiscal year's Proposed Budget? The details were released only 24 hours in advance - not enough time at all for the public to get informed. Budgets are complex to say the least. 

This extended study session is all about BUDGET HEARINGS for three departments all at the same time at one meeting in the Lower Chambers.
At the same time - 07:30 in the morning - there are also two other meetings of the City Council calendar dealing with Eastmark, a CFD (Community Facilities District), that usually get scant scrutiny or attention with everything approved in about five minutes.
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Are you ready to see what the agenda is ahead of time?
It was released only just the day before!
To take action on and to Hear a presentation, discuss, and provide direction on the following three department budgets:
1. Water Resources

2. Environmental Management and Sustainability

3. Energy Resources

Don't know about you, dear readers, but your MesaZona is very curious to find out exactly how much time each of the six City Councilmembers and the mayor took to read and to understand what's in the lengthy presentations for these three city departments. . . .

All three presentations are Power-Point slides that are planned, organized and prepared well ahead of time - it's not "a last-minute" thing by any means. The presenters have their own scripts in front of them and have been rehearsed.
You are presented with only what city officials want you to see for the purpose of getting the proposed budgets in three departments approved, with a minimum of hassles or questions.
Please keep your eyes open and pay attention to what the six individual councilmembers, the mayor, and salaried city officials have to say to either question or praise projects and if the presenters need some support to clear up the questions asked. . . .
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Here's a PRIMER . . . often, public officials, journalists, researchers, and citizens lack the data and practices to identify fiscal challenges in advance. . . To combat the challenges of access to, and understanding of, fiscal sustainability data, US Common Sense has created the nation’s largest comprehensive and free municipal finance platform on GovRank.org. The platform includes “top-line” financial figures, understandable measures of fiscal sustainability, and interactive rankings for over 13,000 municipalities nationwide. > https://govrank.org/research/researchText/62
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Here's one infographic of City Rankings from 2009-2014 that was published in 2016 - take a look where the City of Mesa is in the red Deficit area, all the way to the far right.
This is five years after Chris Brady, former assistant city manager from San Antonio, TX, was hired as the City Manager here in Mesa in 2005.
The debt obligation at that time was about $40M. Last year 2018 it was over $450M.
Yes, Mesa is growing fast, but is it smart and sustainable??
Budgets are complicated to say the very least and anyone reasonable person might ask if councilmembers are smart and informed enough to examine the proposed budgets.
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Here's the 2-Page Agenda made public just the day before . . . No doubt that it would take a team of qualified and diligent financial analysts for than just a day and more than just a few hours to go over a total of 67 pages, in the format of Power Point slides, and to review and understand and analyze the proposed budget figures for the upcoming Fiscal Year for File #19-0372 where the attachments and links are provided below after this overview taken from downloads of the materials to be presented.

Furthermore, there are few elected members on the Mesa City Council with a business and finance background who can realistically wrap their heads around the proposed budgets for their own districts - never mind the impacts citywide. And that's even if they were the time in the first place to access all the data and commentary provided in the slides. Smart?

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Presentations/Action Items: 19-0372
Hear a presentation, discuss, and provide direction on the following department budgets:

Water Resources

Operational Overview and Budget Discussion April 18, 2019
 [27 pages]

Environmental Management & Sustainability Department
Budget Presentation April 18, 2019
Presented by: Scott Bouchie, Environmental Management & Sustainability Dept. Director
[17 pages]

ENERGY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT

FY 19/20 BUDGET REVIEW

PROVIDE SAFE, RELIABLE & ECONOMICAL ELECTRIC & NATURAL GAS UTILITY SERVICES TO OUR CUSTOMERS

Presented by Frank McRae and John Petrof

[23 pages]

File #:

19-0372

Type:

Presentation

Status:

Agenda Ready

In control:

City Council Study Session

On agenda:

4/18/2019

Title:

Hear a presentation, discuss, and provide direction on the following department budgets: 1. Water Resources 2. Environmental Management and Sustainability 3. Energy Resources

Attachments:

1. Water Resources 2. Environmental Management and Sustainability 3. Energy Resources

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Other business

2 Hear reports on meetings and/or conferences attended.

3 Scheduling of meetings and general information.

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Source for Meeting Agendas:
Legistar Calendar/Council, Committe & Board Research Center  

Here's the 3-Hour streaming video - Please note once again many views in a city with a population ov over 475,000 have viewed what our city government is doing:
Published on Apr 19, 2019
Views: 5