Budget Proposal Is Like Christmas In July

It's that special time of year . . . for people who love to work on budgets it must mean one thing . . .

The Proposed 2015-2016 City of Mount Dora Budget is now available online!

WHOOOHOOOO!

Here is my present to you. The 2015-2016 City Of Mount Dora Budget Proposal.

It's almost as much fun as Christmas!

As the budget year begins, let's take a look at the proposed spending, get involved and ask questions. In asking questions, we gain knowledge.

First, while there is 'FUN' in Fund, it is not always the case for people unfamiliar with governmental fund budgeting. But please, you needn't feel intimidated because when you get down to it, you will see that it's simply dollars in and dollars out.

Having worked on much larger budgets at Disney and elsewhere, I know that whatever the business or entity, that the basic concepts remain the same.

During the budget process, we look for fellow citizens and council members to review the documents, understand them the best they can and ask questions.

One of my favorite questions is this, "Would you spend the money on (whatever) project if it were your own money?"

Another one is, "If this is such a great idea, why hasn't a private citizen taken his/her own money and done this yet?"

Really, any question with the word "why" in it is usually a great way to learn more. How else does a 2-year old get so wise over time?

So let's apply this to some examples in the proposed 2015-16 City of Mount Dora budget. There are many more to address but we have to start somewhere.

Let's look at these:

1. Bio-Solids (Sewage)

2. Street Sweeper

3. Trees

So let's apply the 'Why?'

Bio-Solids

According to the budget proposal, we are poised to spend $300,000 each year for the next 4 years on a new Bio-solids Processing Facility.

That's a whopping $1.2M of OPM (Other Peoples' Money -- Your Tax money).

The idea is that this expenditure will reduce the annual direct costs of our current Septage Disposal (our sewage) by an expected amount of $95,650 in 2015-16.

The "why" includes, knowing what is the break even point---where the cost savings offset the initial capital costs and operating costs.

Let's compare this $1,200,000 cost vs. the $95,650 annual savings on a personal level.

Let's move the decimal point for illustration.

Let's suppose that you could buy something for your home AC system for $1,200 that would save you $95.65 annually which means it will take about 12 years to get your initial cost back.

So, would you run out and spend that money if it took 12 years to pay off? (Insert shoulder shrug).

To me it's a no brainer. I wouldn't do it.

When something has a payback of over a decade, it's just not worth the risk of everything going perfectly along the way.

In this example, the thing might break, technology could change, or, or, or…

Back to the Bio-solids Facility.

What are the risks if operations going awry?

What could the costs be if there are problems with the new system?

Of course, we might make some money selling the bio-solids as fertilizer. But wait. We'll have to incur more labor to do this, so the labor and other operating costs might be more than the fertilizer sales.

By the way, we've never marketed this sort of material before so that might be a challenge…and challenges usually equal more dollars.

We'll also get to ask questions about in-sourcing and out-sourcing.

With the Bio-Solids Facility we are looking to go in-house with our "out-house" byproduct.

We're also looking to do the same with street sweeper operations. . . .

Street Sweeper

Currently the city outsources the street sweeping operations.

But now, the question posed to us in this new budget proposal is this:

To "finance the purchase of the $300,000 sweeper or buy it outright."

This reminds me of my childhood.

Dinner time often was preceded with my mom asking us, "peas or carrots?"

What?!?!?

I was thinking strawberries, chocolate milk or pudding but not VEGETABLES!

You see, my mom framed the question to get the answer she wanted, and vegetables it was.

For us in Mount Dora, the thoughtful question to be asking is not, "To finance a street sweeper or not," but WHY do we think we should be buying one in the first place?

The rationale for the switch was the result of receiving poor service from the current contractor.

Imagine that you have a lawn service doing your yard and you have a bad experience. Say they trimmed the bushes too much, left clippings on the sidewalk, showed up late---whatever it was.

Would you run out and buy a brand new mower and do it yourself?

OR, would you shop around for another lawn service?

Could we not find other firms to provide the street sweeping service? Could we get better at administrating contracts?

Spending $300,000, whether financed or not, is a great deal of money.

Where will the additional labor come from to operate the sweeper?

We're told that there will not be additional labor to operate the street sweeper which begs the question: What was the labor doing before we thought about bringing this sweeper in-house?

There might be some good answers to these "whys". We should remain open and ready to hear them. There might be a good reasons.

But we need to find out.

Trees

A big item for the citizens of Mount Dora is the urban tree inventory---not just in the historic downtown---but throughout the city. We know this is important by seeing the overflow crowd at City Hall recently and the huge turnout in May for the downtown Phase III presentation.

According to the budget report, staff is working on something for trees---proposing as much as $15,000 for maintenance/planting.

We need to be asking "why" on lots of levels here to make sure that more trees are planted.

We should be setting proposed funding aside for a tree enrichment program to work on getting more canopy and other trees planted now.

Remember, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago so waiting seems wrong.

Let's work on a program---whether it seeks state, federal or foundation grants---which asks the citizens to personally be involved by adopting a tree and caring for it during the critical first year.

A quick call to a local nursery tells me that small live oaks (or other trees) in less than 10 gallon containers can cost around $20 each, where $100 buys 5, $1,000 buys 50 and and $10,000 buys 500 canopy trees.

Let's set some money aside for this---not just pruning and replacement of existing trees---so we can make Mount Dora even better and do it now with lessor cost trees.

Look around.

There are lots of places to plant a tree with 100+ square feet of space to grow. You'll hear more on that from me in a future blog post.

We'll also be talking in another blog post what and WHEN we should be doing something on Donnelly between 4th and 5th.

These issues discussed above were only a few examples.

There is so much more to review and for us all to ask questions of ourselves. This is our city, our budget and our time to make sure that our voice is heard.

Join me in being a part of the discussion. If you can't make the meetings, let me know your question/concern and I'll do my best to get you an answer.

Good Tidings to you!