Consider a Special Meeting, council members wearing Housing Redevelopment Authority ["HRA"] hats instead of council hats [you tell me, are these "HRA Special Meeting" things televised - of course not, this is Ramsey, full of surprise]. Online there is a full agend for the Feb. 9 special meeting for approval of the HRA 2010 budget, with historic breakouts for prior years, this page given below, fifth page of seven if I count right, no numbering given, you can see line item breakout 6281: "Small Tools/Minor Equipment" and then a 6837: "Tire Mounting and Balancing," a 6302: "Auditing and Accounting," with nothing spent 2006-2009 and no budget for 2010; 6354: "Help Wanted Advertisements," (no spending or budget); even 6322: "Postage" with $717 logged in 2006 (nothing since, nor budgeted); all that arguably nit-picking level of detail.
Click the image to enlarge and read. Note highlighting.
WTF, "Miscellaneous Professional Services" w/o any detail breakout.
Jumping seven-fold from the 2008 figure of mere thousands $7057, (that was before the new council's taking over after elections so compare the before-after pictures, it's not slimming as on the TV adds, it's getting very, very fatter and sassier).
Spending in 2009 plus the amount budgeted for 2010, with no breakout of any detail in line item 6315; three-quarters of a million glombed together as a "miscellaneous" professional services undetailed 2009-2010 slush fund.
Numbers do not lie. Sometimes they are understated to shade truth, but you look at a correct place, they do not lie.
If that seven-hundred-fifty thousand dollar smack-down for the likes of the Lazan-Jungbauer Landform services, as miscellaneous as they have been disclosed, does not make the hair on you neck stand on end and then curl in and out like a yo-yo on a string, you are some kind of village idiot. Or what?
I was not there to hear budget approval debate. I have this page, below, from approval minutes handy, but beyond that I am unaware of council discussion. The minutes reflect Wise arrived 8:54 pm, and the vote was between Elvig's departure, 8:56 pm, and re-arrival, 9:00 pm. The meeting was called to order; 8:52 pm.
Three quarters of a million is one pretty big lump in the room landscape when swept under the rug.
In one feeding in small bills, it would choke a horse 7.5 times over.
It would be as if Jeff Wise ran his business inventory with four breakouts: toothpicks; olives; cocktail onions; and miscellaneous beer, wine and liquor.
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If you go to the first page of the HRA "budget" in that online item, and look at taxes for 2009 and projected for 2010; it's almost the whole tax enchilada. Miscellaneous. By these Republican fiscal conservatives, no less.
Huh? But -- that's a substantial jump -- a jump in taxes after 2008 when the new folks took over -- the GOP crowd. Increasing taxes.
Who are these people? What are they doing? What is the motivation? Where to follow the money?
That massive 70 fold increase in such miscellaneous spending, 2008 to 2009; that's a 70 fold increase from one punk market year to another, with punk market conditions continuing, clearly, into 2010 with the commercial real estate bubble still not fully disappated and the housing bubble as real as ever.
People are in a pinch. The HRA budget is not.
This is a single miscellaneous [you guess] line item bleeding of the fisc to the tune of three quarters of a million.
In punk years.
What need we fear in better times if / when they arrive?
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If you disagree with my analysis, please do post a comment suggesting why it's sound accounting and responsible budget oversight to block item such a vast amount. It is possible some council members knew more before voting. I only have access to what was disclosed online to the Ramsey public. I write based on what I found and reviewed. There might be detail at other places in city online files and records.
__________UPDATE_________
I have been asked a question I cannot answer without pouring at length over the full budget in the full agenda for that meeting, which is online, and even then I might not have an answer. It is where I took the screenshots. Any interested person can contact Diana Lund, Ramsey's CFO, for an answer. The question, on the second budget screenshot, the opening summary page, "revenue - miscellaneous" at $595,641; that's a lot of miscellaneous money. In detail, where's it from, is the question asked of me. I do not know. Ask Diana Lund.
__________UPDATE_________
I have been asked a question I cannot answer without pouring at length over the full budget in the full agenda for that meeting, which is online, and even then I might not have an answer. It is where I took the screenshots. Any interested person can contact Diana Lund, Ramsey's CFO, for an answer. The question, on the second budget screenshot, the opening summary page, "revenue - miscellaneous" at $595,641; that's a lot of miscellaneous money. In detail, where's it from, is the question asked of me. I do not know. Ask Diana Lund.
_________FURTHER UPDATE__________
I wonder if the sentinel's cronies taped that HRA budget to his back so that whichever way he turned his watchfulness, he did not see it. I wonder if the sentinel views all the tax revenue and then some for the HRA going into the "miscellaneous professional services" black hole another of the sentinel's "successes."
Here is a picture of a sentinel, and as a bronze statue, it does not have feet of clay.
_____________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Never an RFP for Landform, even with that three-quarters of a million ambiguously budgeted.
It appears to be negligent handling of public money.