The City of Sedona is seeking volunteers to serve on a newly formed Budget Oversight Commission that will help the City in preparing the five-year capital plan and annual budget. The commission will consist of seven members appointed by the Council for specific terms of service.
The commission is solely advisory to the Council but will play a key role in providing important public input on budget policy, including revenue recommendations, capital planning processes and prioritization for continuation or elimination of programming and services in order to maintain a balanced budget.
The Commission will meet regularly to review information and provide feedback in concurrent with the Budget Calendar in order to meet key deadlines for feedback to the Council to assist with formulation of the annual budget.
Citizens interested in serving on this commission must be Sedona residents, or own a business within the corporate limits of the City of Sedona. Four 2-year terms and three 1-year terms are available for appointment. Meetings will typically be held the Third Wednesday of each Month, November through May from 10:00 a.m. to noon.
- The commission works with a staff liaison to review budget conditions such as:
- Review and discuss financial reports and revenue and expenditure projections.
- Advise on situations of budget exceptions including, but not limited to, shortfalls and/or overages in revenue expenditures.
- Review Council Priorities and recommend capital and operating funding levels in accordance with those priorities.
- Advise on possible new revenues, fees and taxes as needed.
- Take information learned in the meetings back into the community, and bring questions/concerns from community members to BOC meetings for discussion.
- Participate in community outreach activities as arranged by staff.
- Provide information to City Council through staff reports on an as-needed basis.
In addition, commission members must commit to becoming familiar with the Annual Budget and Budget Process and various other financial policies and reporting tools. The City Council is interested in a group that broadly represents the community; therefore a financial background is not required to serve.
Applications may be picked up at the City Clerk’s Office, 102 Roadrunner Drive, Sedona City Hall. Applications must be returned to the Clerk’s Office by 5:00 p.m. on September 7, 2010.
The Annual Budget and Audit documents are available at the City Clerk’s Office or on the city website at www.SedonaAZ.gov/Finance. For additional information, please contact the City at (928) 204-7127.
Alison Zelms
Assistant City Manager, City of Sedona
102 Roadrunner Drive
Sedona, AZ 86336
928.204.7120
928.282.5671 (fax)
azelms@sedonaAZ.gov
Tim Ernster, Alison Zelms, Barbara Ashley and Finance Dept Staff,
In your call for volunteers for the City of Sedona Budget Oversight Commission, you state that, amongst the Commission’s other responsibilities, two will be to advise relative to:
*Review and discuss financial reports and revenue and expenditure projections.
*Advise on possible new revenues, fees and taxes as needed.
Let’s see now…when serving on the first Mayor’s Economic Steering Committee, each of you (except Tim Ernster) and Staff were affronted when I told you that you really didn’t know how to generate the revenue input variables (the cornerstone of any reasonably accurate budget forecasts) portion of the budgets you prepare which is why your budgets always result in a huge discrepancy between “actual” and “budgeted” City operating expenses. You rely on GFOA/CAFR accounting rules which are not GAAP accepted and you acquire input data from the League of Arizona Cities and Towns and the Arizona Dept of Revenue, neither of whom employ modern financial modeling software to generate accurate revenue forecasts. I find it apalling that the state of Arizona is the second worst in the nation at preparing accurate financial forecasts (second only to California…I sent to you documented proof of this statement) and yet you still rely on their revenue input variables and source data to found your forecasts upon because you don’t understand, in any way, the use of modern financial modeling software and techniques.
When I submitted to you the name of a volunteer, who is one of this nation’s more eminent designers of financial modeling programs with over a 120,000 former clients (who lives right here in Sedona), you rejected his offer out of hand to teach you, GRATIS, how to perform modern reliable financial modeling because, as you said publicly and most arrogantly, “you knew how to do it right because you were taught by Eric Levitt,” whom I doubt could balance his own checkbook. To this day, none of you can figure out what many of his capital/reserve account book transfer entries meant.
Yet now, you just can’t seem to understand why you haven’t even a single volunteer for your Commission. Could it be that it is well understood that you are not looking for volunteers with demonstrated expertise in economics, financial planning, knowledge in and of the municipal bond markets, and modern financial modeling but, rather, “rubber stampers” of Staff and Council spending plans? To give validation to your bloated salaries, perhaps? Worse yet, could it be that the public knows you have no intention of listening to anyone who knows more than you do?
Most interesting of all, there are only three people, or so, in Sedona that have a complete understanding of economics, modern financial plan modeling, the cloak of CAFR rules bookkeeping, and the deficiencies of Sedona’s “tourism and residential building” based business models, and you haven’t asked any one of them to volunteer for your Budget Oversight Commission. I think the reason you won’t approach any of these three is because you fear the revelations of people with true credentials whom you can’t control. Be honest for once..you want a Commission of rubber stampers to “accomodate” you!
J. Rick Normand
Your insight regarding the City’s SOP is what some of us recognize as “business as usual.” Almost everything the City undertakes is steered by a small, but select group of people cloaked in the guise of seeking “community” input. In fact, only those who profess to share the City’s distorted vision are selected to serve. Failure to actually listen to residents who have relevant experience has resulted in the bankruptcy of the Sedona Cultural Park and I predict the same fate will happen to the Sedona RR HS Performing Arts Center. Likewise, the Community Plan process which was hijacked by stacking P&Z in charge of overseeing the process prior to beginning the “selection” of residents to serve on the steering committee will have a similar result.