'Crayola documents' at the budget hearing

Plainfield City Council took up a number of issues at Thursday evening's budget hearing, including the now-infamous $1.66M PILOTs error, Dudley House, and the 'Information and Technology' proposal.

When the public finally got copies of the spreadsheet with the $1.66M error, it literally -- as Councilman Reid exclaimed -- 'leaped off the page at you'.

Let's be perfectly clear: This mistake should have been caught by Mr. Peck before it even got to the stage of being put in the budget proposal. It is, after all, WHAT HE GETS PAID FOR.

Such an error would be highly unlikely at Eric Watson's PMUA, where spreadsheets are routinely sorted from highest to lowest dollar values FOR EXACTLY THIS REASON -- to spotlight items which might be jarringly wrong or need further investigation.

But it does not seem that ANYTHING submitted to the Council by Mayor Robinson-Briggs' hand-picked budget duo has been scrutinized IN THE LEAST.

ANTICIPATED REVENUES

On this spreadsheet of SFY2009 Anticipated Revenues, there were numerous errors that a 4th-grader would find embarrassing, as well as misleading and non-descriptive labels for revenue sources.

A few examples --

• A column header entitled 'Relaized in Cash' which should presumably read 'Realized'
  
  
• And these Revenue items with less-than-optimal descriptions --
  
  
• 'Alcoholic Beverages' -- So, the city is selling booze? Or is it alcoholic beverage license renewal fees?
• 'Other' -- When asked what this meant, the answer was 'permits and fees' to which the questioner replied, 'but you have another line called 'fees and permits'
• 'Municipal Court' -- with no breakdown as to sources such as 'traffic', 'code enforcement fines', etc.
• 'Interest and Cost on Taxes' -- How's that again?
• 'Parking Meter Permits' -- But of course the Division's receipts come from TWO sources: Permits and Meters. When asked, the questioner was told the figure did include meter receipts; shouldn't the Council have a breakdown?
• 'PILOT's -- There were several errors, the most glaring of which was referring to 'Covenant Manor' on East Front Street as 'Covenant House', the famous NYC program for runaway teens
• 'Energy Receipts Tax' -- which was finally explained as monies paid by utilities customers in their bills, captured by the state from the utilities and shared with local municipalities. The formula? Don't even ask.
• 'Municipal Homeland Security' and 'Life Hazard Use Payments' escaped my attention. What do YOU think they mean?

Such sloppy, sloppy, sloppy presentation would NEVER have been tolerated by previous City Administrators or Directors of Finance and Administration.

But wait! There's more.

DUDLEY HOUSE

Next up was the Dudley House discussion.

A two-page handout was intended to clarify what the City is spending to maintain the program in FY2009.

It was more than a year ago that the continuation of the program was put in danger because of a failure to get a license after ADA-required changes to the building had not been made. At this late date, this is what is being presented.

In the hearing, Councilor Burney made the point that the majority of clients are NOT from Plainfield but instead from other communities in Union and Middlesex counties. The administration replied that no other governmental entities were willing to pitch in, leaving the funding to Plainfield. It was also stated that Plainfield was looking to certify and maintain ownership of the building and was looking for a nonprofit to operate the program (no doubt a paid consultant would be used?).

An extended back-and-forth revealed that there have not been any clients in residence for some time as the premises do not meet the state's requirements.

When I asked why the City didn't look instead to sell the building to a nonprofit and get out of the rehab business, Mr. Dashield said that would be considered 'maybe as part of an RFP'.

With no current clients, with the staff laid off previously, and with the building out of compliance, I am having a hard time understanding why the Administration is proceeding down this path when it is facing other budget pressures and a difficult economic forecast.

During the course of the discussions, Mr. Peck referred to the color-coded calendar which broke the project of getting Dudley House certified down into four phases, each with a start- and end-date indicated in boxes next to the colored bars identifying the phases.

The right-hand side of the page was taken up by a calendar marked 'FY2009', which showed (via colored blocks) the dates on which various aspects of the project were to be done.

Unlike Mr. Peck, several people noticed immediately that there were discrepancies between the calendar and the dates in the boxes in the accompanying table.

When I asked why Phase 2 was shown on the calendar as begining on August 1st and in the table as having a start-date of September 15th, Mr. Peck said that it was a 'Crayola' document.

With apologies to 'Oops'.

How apt.

The other item to be discussed was the 'Information and Technology' handout.

I gagged on the opening statement --

Purpose

The Information Technology Department (IT) will provide the tools for an efficient and productive government through innovative information technologies, while improving access to government information and services.

Plainfield Information Technology will create and deliver innovative technological solutions and support in order to provide citizens, businesses and government staff with access to information and services.

Perhaps we should refer to 'Plainfield Information Technology' as the PITs?

I'll take this up later.

Even faithful readers have their endurance limits.

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-- Dan Damon

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