By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – As we have reported in the past, the city of Davis has been running somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 to $10 million in the hole in terms of the difference between what they need to spend and what they take in.
Contrary to a letter writer in the Enterprise, deferring maintenance is not a “money saver” for the city – it ends up costing more money because costs go up over time and things like road maintenance increase exponentially.
It would be interesting to see what the projected costs of road maintenance is now that the cost of oil and thus probably the cost of asphalt has shot up this year.
As the letter writer notes: “For a city that promotes biking and walking over driving, one would think such city would clean, repair and maintain its sidewalks and pathways.”
There are two sides of this coin of course – one is the lack of revenue that the city generates annually.
But the other is the huge hit that pensions continue to take on the city. I thought Rich Rifkin did a fairly nice just of illustrating it in his column last week.
“According to PERS, in the 2019-20 fiscal year, Davis paid $13.2 million for its pension obligations. That was 21.5 percent of the city’s $61.4 million general fund,” he writes and that’s not all, by 2022-23, that number will be $17.7 million, a 34.1 increase over those three years.
Rifkin argues: “Paying for these debts reduces the ability of Davis and Yolo County to fix our roads, fight fires, prevent crimes, police the streets, maintain parks and greenbelts, house the homeless, feed the poor, repair public buildings, vehicles and equipment and protect public health.”
That’s exactly the problem. I have been covering the pension issue off and on since 2008 and while the city has made some changes, the problem is not getting better, in fact it is getting worse. It is going to start impacting our quality of life.
As the letter writer notes, the fact that Davis cannot maintain its sidewalks, bike paths and streets is not only a quality of life issue, it is a public safety issue.
That gets me to the issue of the Social Services Department. The city is proposing for pay an additional ongoing amount of around $434,000 per year to make those changes.
Unlike the pension problem or the roads problem, finding $434,000 is not going to be huge problem for the city. They don’t have to find that money until the 2023-25 budget as it is.
Shouldn’t they know exactly where that money is coming from now, some have asked. Not really.
They basically have four options, none of which includes a new revenue measure. First, given that there are homeless and other services involved, they will look at grant funding. Second, they can either realize savings from retirements or from unfilled positions that are already budgeted. In fact, that is how they are funding some of the five positions that already exist on paper. Third, they can rearrange existing budgetary items to redirect money. Fourth, and the last resort, would be to actually cut other positions that might be of lower priority.
None of those four options are that difficult. They are waiting on grant funding, which is largely why they have not planned any further.
If you are concerned about the city budget, you should be much more concerned about the other things I have mentioned – increased pension costs, increased costs for asphalt, and that $8 to $10 million of unmet needs increasing rather than the easily handled marginal increase for public safety.
Some of our readers pointed out that there was a promise of savings for Crisis NOW diversion of policing to mental health responders.
I think there will be savings from Crisis NOW but it’s not going to materialize directly on a balance sheet. Allow me to explain.
CAHOOTS is a little different from what the city of Davis and Yolo County are entering into. In CAHOOTS you have a non-profit partner with the city of Eugene, that operates a mobile crisis response team.
It is true that “A cost-saving analysis from the Eugene Police Department found that CAHOOTS saves the city $2.2 million in officer wages.” However, that money is actually offset, prior to this year, the city contracted with CAHOOTS for $820,586 a year, and in 2020, CAHOOTS was operating at a $500,000 deficit and therefore asked for $1.8 million.
When Karen Larsen presented on Crisis NOW in May, she noted that in Maricopa County, Arizona, the fourth largest county in the nation, they estimate that the program saves 37 full time police officers and produces an overall cost saving of $37 million systemwide.
Despite all of this, we should really not expect a direct fiscal benefit there.
Part of the reason for that – Davis generally has 4-5 police officers in the city on duty at one time. When the city goes to the crisis manage team, that will for sure take away some calls for services, but realistically the city is not going to cut police officers as the result of that change.
If it does reduce costs, it will be reducing the need for increased staffing of the police department. For years, the city has wanted to add more cops to help patrol the downtown, address property crimes and other nuisance issues.
Shifting homeless services and mental health out of the police department will help with respect to increased demand for more cops, but it is not going to decrease the number of cops now.
Thus there may well be cost savings, but it is not going to show up on the bottom line of this year’s budget.
None of this should be read as playing down the overall fiscal problems in the city. But the fact is that we can take the hit and either find money through grants or offset the costs in other ways fairly easily.
If Davis can offset costs in other departments or somehow find money “fairly easily” shouldn’t it be used to repair the infrastructure (roads, sidewalks, etc)? In this time of “fiscal peril”, as you frame it, is this the time to be creating a whole new department with even more costs, salaries, health costs, pensions and so forth?
I would offer a few responses to that. For one, are those the priority over this? And who decides?
Pshaw!
This outta be good . . .
And the Lord said, “It was good”
The government is waiting for money from the government.
I am concerned. And none of that makes the argument you made the least bit logical. Why not just say, “I want this”, similar to “I want a pony” ? Nothing wrong with wanting one thing over the other . . . it doesn’t require writing an illogical argument to justify these wants.
You forgot “A cop behind every stop sign to bust bicyclists, a cop for every bicyclist without a bike light” to satisfy all the letters-to-the-editor on these subjects in Davis over the last 40 years . . . yet little has changed on bikes running stop signs nor bikes without lights in 40 years. Why is that? Hmmmmmmm . . .
Be interesting to see what kind of stats we have on bicyclists killed running stop signs in Davis.
You can buy a pony, but you have to not buy something else in order to do so. I am indeed prioritizing spending on this over spending on other things. I acknowledge that. I also acknowledge others have different priorities. In the end, that’s why we elect representatives who make those decisions and if we don’t like those decisions, we have levels of resource.
You can buy a
pony Crisis Now Dept, but you have to notbuyfix something else in order to do so, for example the roads.Yes… over contracted, ‘implied’ contracted, and other priorities… we get that… a “new contract” that ‘trumps’ all others…
Sidewalks, BTW are legally the responsibility of the adjacent property owners… for repair/replacement (CA State Streets and Highways Code).
[edited]
Probably not a whole lot of stats 😐
If you believe some, we need to look at the stats of pedestrians killed by bicyclists running stop signs in Davis. Also a short list.
I do appreciate your acknowledging “I am indeed prioritizing spending on this over spending on other things.” I have no issue with that. We all have our priorities on spending of limited resources.
I’m curious, is “fiscal peril” the same as a “crisis”?
Reminds me of the old Olivia Newton (Elton) John song for JP Morgan, “Let’s Get Fiscal”.
Is it too late for them to change their minds, and use the temporary federal money that they’re receiving for actual city needs?
By the way, does anyone (other than a “future auditor”) look at how that money is supposed to be spent?
Also, what happened to the balance of the temporary federal money they’ve received? (I recall a total somewhere around $600,000 or more).
Who decides what “actual city needs”?
Apparently, people who don’t care about city finances.
I would further define it as additional services that have not historically been part of what the city provides, e.g., drifting into health care.
Police right now are the front line of mental health services and homeless coordination. So I don’t think that’s an accurate assessment.
This has already all been discussed.
If you’re adding $434,000 in permanent costs (rising some amount each year), but you’re not making corresponding cuts to the police department, then the city is adding services and losing more money.
And again, when that temporary money runs out, the city itself will have to fund it. And again, does the $434,000 include indirect costs?
What else could that temporary money been used for?
In any case, I wouldn’t be defending additional expenditures in a series of articles, followed the next day with an article regarding the city’s “fiscal peril”. I think most people have a longer memory than you might be giving them credit for.
Sort of like complaining about housing shortages one day, then advocating for a development which would create a housing shortage (and result in additional RHNA housing requirements) the very next day.
Truly, a bizarre comment… unless you’re talking about a commercial/industrial/business development, with NO housing, which would mean net revenues… and that would be even more bizarre…
Unless you’ve avoided reading the EIR for DISC (as well as all of my and others’ comments pointing out what it says), you already know that DISC would create a demand for more housing than it provides. Assuming that the commercial component was actually viable, of course.
The evidence shows that you do in fact, read comments and are familiar with what the EIR states regarding this. Again, it’s not my “opinion” – it’s simple numbers based upon what is planned for the development.
Go back and read the EIR, if you don’t believe me. It’s in there, including how much more housing would be expected to be accommodated in Davis as a result of the development, and how much would be expected to be accommodated in surrounding communities.
Though it makes things more complicated when the development isn’t cut exactly “in half”.
This is not true even in home economics. What you see is merely a culture of inaction unless work is compensated.
If the rule is “if you sweep the yard I will give you $10, but I can only do so once per week”.
Then you get a behavior where people leave something in the yard uncleaned so that they can get $10 every week.
What do those people do when not cleaning? They are bored. But if they finish cleaning, they lose the $10 they could have gotten next. Therefore they would rather not finish cleaning.
The problem is not opportunity cost, the problem is in the reward system. The opportunity cost of “money” is artificial. There is enough human power and resources to do everything. People choose to not do anything due to the pay structure.
If you can say “we are just waiting for grants so everything can start.” It means society is being hamstringed by their misunderstanding of what money is. (Either that or people in power are too smart to use their control of money to control society for their selfish interests.)
We’ll there’s a concept they didn’t teach us in Econ 1A at U.C. Davis 😐
Just for some context, the city is prepared to spend $2.47 million dollars to resurface tennis and basketball courts, and “the new courts will also provide additional pickleball courts … at multiple City parks.”
So we all have our priorities. I’d say this reorganization of policing and other services can be readily absorbed into the existing budget.
Much of it can probably be funded through grants especially the mental health and homeless portions and the rest can be easily absorbed into the budget.
So the City is funding the annoying-the-f*ck out of even more neighbors of City parks?
I’ll take funding a new Social Services department for $2.47 million, Alex 😉
No, seriously, a much better use of that much money. That should fund about a dozen plus new social workers to respond to field mental health and non-emergency response . . . for a year.
And maybe a few more bike cops on the side 🙂
Davis city parks: come for the camping meth addicts, stay for the games that sound like machine-gun fire, and enjoy a few Davis residents walking there dogs alone, outside, with masks on 😐
Says it all… no need to elaborate… [nor, any point in elaborating]
Sure if you are going to compare the unmet needs for infrastructure to the personnel costs for staffing a new department.
David, each dollar can only be used once, so the choice between using that dollar on an otherwise-deferred and clearly-needed expense versus using that dollar on staffing a new department is a very real, and meaningful choice.
Davis has a long history of City Council choosing to use dollars on paying for new services, while very quietly sweeping the deferred expenses under a rug. That is why we currently start every budget year “in the neighborhood of $8 to $10 million in the hole.” Those deferred expenses add up.
I personally believe that the $8 million to $10 million range is about $4 million too low. That $4 million comes from additions to the budget like the fire department ladder truck and the Mace Mess reconstruction, both of which have big price tags but no incremental matching revenues to pay for them.
Further, the Council periodically refers to “additional revenues from economic development” when considering decisions like the ladder truck, but the City does not have an Economic Development Plan to guide any economic development efforts. Those additional revenues can best be described by the expression “a wing and a prayer.”
“David, each dollar can only be used once, so the choice between using that dollar on an otherwise-deferred and clearly-needed expense versus using that dollar on staffing a new department is a very real, and meaningful choice.”
I agree.
“Further, the Council periodically refers to “additional revenues from economic development” when considering decisions like the ladder truck, but the City does not have an Economic Development Plan to guide any economic development efforts. Those additional revenues can best be described by the expression “a wing and a prayer.””
Which is why I didn’t mention it in this article.
Old expression… “you make your choices, you take your chances…”
What is left out, is “you bear the responsibility and the consequences of the choices you make”…
Another old expression… “be careful what you wish for… you just might get your wish (aka, “choice”)”… [and, if you get your desires, preferences, you can’t justly complain about them being fulfilled, except, perhaps, by an act of contrition… no matter what choice is made].
Choices have, will be made… they may turn out great, neutral, or badly… but folk need to “own” the choices they advocate for, if those choices are ‘chosen’…
That was all I have been trying to point out… take FULL responsibility for what you advocate for, for better or worse…
I’m willing to watch the choices, and referee the outcomes… I just seek an honest, and fair (free of hypocrisy) game on this topic… I have not taken a “position”, except that latter…
I definitely appear to agree with Matt W on this… he appears to also acknowledge that there are choices to be made… but they need to be informed and thoughtful (supported by logic)… and having consequences… good/bad/indifferent…