03/23/2010 Commissioner Meeting

Tennis Courts at Garrard Park were on the public comment today. Mr. Earlywine, a school teacher at Paris City Schools spoke to city officials about doing some needed repair work to 4 of the tennis courts. He stated both Paris and Bourbon County Schools use the courts for their respective tennis teams.
He came to the meeting with a prepared list of items that needed repair. Mr. Earlywine also stated that members of each team along with himself and other volunteers were prepared to supply Free Labor to the project if the city would help.  Mr Earlywine had estimated the material for the needed repairs would cost about $4,000.00
Mayor Thornton told him that this was a pretty good gesture on the schools part to help out and he didn’t have a problem as long as there was money in the budget to help. City Manager Nagy replied he had money in the budget.
Mr Earlywine thanked them very much for their support. Mr. Earlywine stated they wanted to do the work during Spring Break in order to get it done for Tennis Season.

I was very pleased to hear about how our young people and adults were willing to volunteer there time to work on this project. I am sure all the people who enjoy playing tennis in Paris will greatly benefit from this.

Another item was communications. City Manager Nagy stated “that Assistant City Manager Matt Belcher plans for the future was that he is leaving the city at the middle of next month.”

It looks like to me this will leave yet another job opening the city will need to fill?  But not so fast here John, later on in the meeting they started discussing the Finance Director position from past meetings they wanted to hire.
It seems now that City Manager Nagy’s recommendation is to do away with the Assistant City Manager position and replace it with a position titled- Finance/Billing Director. He also wants to hire a support person in addition to deal with H.R. issues and insurance issues.
The discussions that followed between city officials drummed up yet more disagreement between them in what to do? This time the mayor and 4 commissioners voted NO on Mr Nagys recommendation. They then decided to create yet another title-CFO/Utility Director and decided to advertise for this position!. The mayor and 4 commissioners all voted YES on this one.

I will add a comment about this position. Just like one of the many readers of this blog pointed out to me. We already pay the City Manager a Very Very High Salary. Shouldn’t this be part of his job already? Does he not have the financial background to keep the City of Paris Financials in proper order?

Another item was the 2nd reading of the weed/grass ordinance. In one of my previous post, I noted they tabled the issue until the City Attorney could review my recommendations. In this meeting the City Attorney stated, “I had some time to look at it, I don’t think we need to make those references.” There was some further discussing and then the mayor and all commissioners voted YES for the ordinance as the city attorney presented it.

Oh well I tried, Guess I will wait and see now if they ENFORCE the ordinance or I put up with 3 to 5 foot weeds again all summer.

One other item was the Fire Chief position. City Manager noted that Andy Roe has been the Interim Fire Chief now for several weeks since the retirement of the previous Fire Chief. He noted Mr Roe has dealt with the job very satisfactory and he recommended they install Mr Roe as the New Fire Chief. A vote was taken and all city officials voted YES for Mr Roe to become Fire Chief.



Until next time,

New Business on the agenda

More 3/09/2010meeting
City Manager Nagy brought to the meeting his recommendation to begin the recruitment of a Deputy Clerk/Accountant. He stated, “this position is clearly needed to bolster the financial department and help other departments”.

Who would have thought this could cause such a misunderstanding or mis-interpretation with our city officials. What I am talking about is what the auditors from Ray, Foley, and Hensley told city officials when they presented the Financial statements to the City of Paris about a month back.

The auditors discussed items of concern to them. The auditor told city officials, “The City lacks experience in applying generally accepted accounting principles to transactions recorded throughout the year and determining appropriate financial statement disclosures” They said appropriate experience should be sought and recommended the City consider the feasibility of the addition of a Financial Officer.

Here is the interpretations of “Financial Officer” of City Officials.

Now back to City Manager Nagy interpretation it must be this Deputy Clerk/Accountant?

Commissioner Galbraith thought this person should have at least a Bachelor Degree in accounting not just an associate degree as Nagy had suggested. Galbraith thought this person should be on the same level as the present city clerk.

Commissioner Fryman said, “he thought this new person was an assistant for the city clerk and would be reporting to the present city clerk”.

Mayor Thornton stated, “he thought they were trying to hire a CPA, the top of the pyramid that the whole accounting department would answer to. This person would be the one to answer any financial questions that any department might have like a chief financial officer of any business.”

Commissioner Horne agreed with Mayor Thornton while Commissioner Brooks did not express an opinion. The city officials continued for quite sometime back and forth describing what they thought the duties of this new person should be.
It was finally decided that a Deputy Clerk/Accountant was not the position they needed.
Mayor Thornton and all commissioner voted no against city manager Nagys recommendation. They then decided to do much like Mayor Thornton idea. They would create a new position of Finance Director and then hire that person.

I will have to agree with Mayor Thornton on this. I was at the meeting when the auditors made their recommendation. To me they clearly meant the City of Paris needed to hire a CPA type person to take charge of the Cities Finances, not just a Deputy Clerk/Accountant.

Until next time,

03/09/2010 Commissioners Meeting

One item on the agenda was a federal grant for the fire department which has been discussed in several previous meetings. This grant provided money and obligated the city to increase the total of employees at the fire department to 35. This was about 3 years ago when the economy was thriving. Since then the economy slowed and bottom line no extra employees were hired. Today it was stated there are 27 full time employees and several part time.
In this meeting City Manager Nagy recommended that the city cancel the grant. Mr Nagy stated, “it is not feasible or economical to do now” He also stated, “we are on the hook to refund the federal government around $75,000.”

Mr Nagy further stated, “they were down to 27 employees because of retirement and resignation they needed to hire 3 right away to get back to 30 employees. Then he stated, don’t consider going over 30 without additional grant activity to help us.”

After discussing the matter, the mayor and city commissioners all voted to cancel the grant and repay the $75,000.

Even though the city had to repay the money, it was sound fiscal policy to do at this time to me.

Another item was the 2nd reading of the weed ordinance. Of course, you know I had sign the public comment sheet on this one to speak up because this is what started my attending all these meetings in the first place.

After the ordinance was read by the city attorney, I was allowed to join into the conversation by Mayor Thornton. They actually listened and I think agreed with most that I said. We all had what I would consider a good open discussion on the issues and was not a shouting match. After our discussion at least they all voted to table the ordinance until next meeting instead of voting on it right now. That would give the city attorney time to consider my recommendations and hopefully re-write them into the new ordinance. I guess we will find out in the next meeting.

It sounds like a petty issue in one way, but my family and me have lived the past two summers with weeds and grass 3ft to 5ft tall constantly surrounding our house in the City of Paris. They are vacant lots for sale but the property owners refuse to keep the properties mowed liked the city ordinance states. And to compound the problem the city was dragging their feet all last summer to enforce the ordinance.

Next time I will continue with more on this meeting

Until next time,

More 02/23/2010 Meeting

Another really interesting item was to approve a contract agreement with C.D.P Engineering to design a telemetry system for water, sewer, and electric for the City of Paris. They never stated out loud how much money the contract was for and I wasn’t told the amount.

For those of you who may not known what telemetry means in this case, here is a brief definition:  Highly automated communications process by which data is collected from instruments located at remote or inaccessible points. Then it is transmitted to centrally located receiving equipment for measurement, monitoring, display, and recording. Transmission of the information may be over wires, or more commonly by radio.
Assistant City manager Matt Belcher told the commissioners “the system would be used to monitor and control pump stations, lift stations, over head storage tanks, and electric sub-stations.” Assistant City Manager Belcher also stated “money was in the current budget from each of 3 departments water, sewer, and electric of $ 40,000 each.”

That is a total of $ 120.000.00 I went through the copy of the budget the city manager gave me a few weeks back page by page. I could only find two line items on page 29 account number 506-telemetry for $ 35,000 and another on page 31 account number 575 for $ 40,000 These two items only total $75,000 ?? This telemetry system sounds like something useful, but were is the rest of the money coming from?

Commissioner Galbraith asked “In going forward with this project what could the city expect to save in terms of money.” The conversations that followed this question never gave any straight forward answers in terms of money, only what if scenarios with no exact savings.
Commissioner Galbraith stated “The whole scope of the project cost was unclear but a number that was tossed out was around $ 400,000"

Commissioner Horne stated “he agreed with Fryman that the proposal was kinda like pie in the sky with a lot of options with no estimates of on going expenses”.

City manager Nagy told the commissioners that he and assistant manger Belcher would get more details and bring the proposal back another time.

I certainly hope they get their costs lined out before starting a project of this magnitude of spending our tax dollars. That $400,000 could turn out to be double or even more if careful planning is not done.

Another item Mr. Nagy presented was three employees acted as interim department heads and were paid hourly during there service. Mike Withrow- code enforcement salary was adjusted to    
$ 22.30 an hour. Mr. Rick Elkin was acting Police Chief, his salary was adjusted to $ 24.50 hour. Mr. Andy Roe is acting Fire Chief, and his salary was adjusted to $ 25.30 hour.

Sounds like working for the City of Paris pays a lot better than most other jobs around here.

Another item was financial business. Commissioner Fryman raised the question of “How is it that the estimated income was showing         $ 6,405,000 and the expenditures showed $ 7,447,000. He stated “he knew they didn’t pass a budget that the expenditures exceeded the income by over a million dollars.” After further discussion the city clerk nor City Manager Nagy had an immediate answer for Fryman. Even though this error could not be explained during the meeting, all commissioners and the mayor voted yes to approve the financial as presented?

Sounds like we really do need a financial officer with the required background to keep track of things like the auditors suggested!

Until next time,