The Pulse of Columbia

Tomorrow Columbia City Council heads into the first of its two days of budget retreat. The major focus… twofold…

• How to deal with the $18 million healthcare shortfall.
• What to do when it comes to benefits for retirees.

Seems that lack of focus on the financial books has left a drain on city finances. When you take a look at it… at $18 million over three years… the city’s been bleeding nearly $16,500 per day. That equates to one police officer or firefighter every two days per year for the last three years.

Suggestions have been made that the City is going to have to cut benefits or offer a new cafeteria-style health insurance plan to its nearly 2000 employees to account for the rise in health costs. Some members of council have even gone so far as to suggest a sliding scale for insurance costs based upon an employee’s salary.

Not a bad idea…

So we took a look at the most recent salary comparison between the City of Columbia and the two surrounding counties and uncovered one MAJOR issue… the City’s a tad bit top heavy.

The most recent numbers show the City of Columbia has 58 employees making $70,000+. In comparison… Richland and Lexington counties COMBINED have only 43.

Perhaps City Council should look at ways to reduce the upper management bureaucracy as a step in the right direction for cutting costs. It’ll be interesting to see what comes from discussions that begin tomorrow at the Eau Claire Print Facility.

We’ll let you know.

Last Friday the first draft of the city’s 2006-2007 financials made their way to the auditor for review. This 13-month timeframe for closing the city’s financial books is a vast improvement from the previous year, but will it be enough time for the auditors to give City Council the accurate information it needs to make some rather important financial decisions during its 2-day budget retreat next week?

The auditors say, “No.”

They’ve told the City they need three weeks to fully review the information. With that being the case, should Council postpone its retreat… not only to give the auditor enough time to accurately review the information… but to also give Council enough time to digest the review and make the wisest financial decisions?

That’s up to Council and City Manager Austin.

Word has it that there are only 8 hours alloted for this budget retreat. Too much of that time could easily be spent deciding which numbers Council should work from. Council and the City Manager must decide if they’ll have what they need in terms of accurate-enough numbers to make decisions on the city’s $18 million health care cost crisis, the future of the city’s retirement system, and whatever adjustments will be required to the recently-adopted 2008-2009 budget to account for both.

This leads to the question of accountability.

Since the first of the year, city leaders have been verbally pushing for changes in the financial house of the city. City Manager Austin has repeatedly told his financial staff to “Stick to the Plan” and not waver from their task of bringing the financial house in order. That plan originally had a delivery date of October 2008 for accurate financial statements. That date then moved to the end of the year. Last week Council received word it was going to be January before the financials would be in order.

Credit should be given to the city financial staff and the consultants from the SC Municipal Association who are trying to reconstruct the City’s broken financial house. Credit should also be given to City Manager Austin for rallying his team to “Stick to the Plan”. We just hope someone will set a final drop-dead delivery date for financial statements and hold whoever it is in management accountable to deliver that information on time.

If it can’t be done, and they need support from the Columbia community, then City leaders should ask for it. We don’t doubt that help would be lining up at the door of City Hall to answer the call.

As one former member of Richmond, VA council put it the other day, it can be a hard thing to get to the point that you have the city producing those monthly financial reports, but once they’re in place, it will make governing a lot easier.

Let’s hope so.

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the latest news, Columbia’s city government has been focusing attention on issues from one end of the spectrum to the other.

While it may be important to focus on tangential issues at some point, right now, with all the issues vying for our city leaders’ attention, the headline story should read… “City leaders prep for budget retreat”.

That would make sense, especially since the seven members of Council are facing a round of budget cuts, overcoming an $18 million budget shortfall on health care costs, and working on some viable solution to a busing issue that could easily put a major drain on the Columbia economy.

Let’s put first things first. If we need to focus on solutions to problems… let’s work on the budget, address the $500,000 per month aneurysm in the city’s health care costs, and figure out how Johnny at my favorite fast food restaurant is going to get to work if the bus system is cut by 85%.

Once we have these issues addressed, then we can talk about the drug-related gang violence that is plaguing neighborhoods in our city, address the aging water system, and give the arts community the attention and focus it deserves.

Then, once we have these issues addressed, we can pick a new slogan for the City, figure out a better way to work with other government entities in the region to stop the duplication of services, and discuss economic development for the region.

Let’s not get sidetracked. Let’s not lose focus on what we need to do to address the issues of this City. All other issues and projects need to be set aside for now to focus full attention to what’s important. City leaders need to enumerate the priorities facing our community, address them accordingly in upcoming Council sessions and the budget retreat, and provide the guidance the community needs to help move the ball in the same direction.

In case you missed Sunday’s edition of The State, it seems the bus issue is front and center in the city’s scope. Brad Warthen devotes his column to his mass-transit needs while Robert Airial, as usual, lets a picture say more than a thousand words.