CITIZEN’S VIEW: ‘Greater Transparency’ at $36 per hour

By JOE RODRIGUEZ
Special to the NEWS

Joe Rodriguez

On Sept. 16, 2013, the City Manager, Mr. Manuel Lara, penned a guest “CITY DESK” column titled “Greater Transparency.” Remember those two words, as that is the subject of this commentary. You can read Mr. Lara’s entire column (City Manager Column) by visiting www.resecacity.blospot.com.

For the sake of brevity, I will highlight what I consider the key points made by Mr. Lara:

“Our objective is to create a more financially transparent government. When we talk about transparency in terms of government spending, we are referring to government opening its books to the public so that taxpayers can see exactly where their money is going. Transparency ensures that taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently by ensuring” all decisions are made in the open and on the record.” Transparency means that citizens can review and question policymakers’ decisions, “examine documents,” root out inefficiencies and hold officials accountable for the way tax dollars are spent.”

“We undertake this, knowing that transparency is a key contributor to public policy effectiveness and efficiency, and it can enhance good decision making.”

While the goal of Mr. Lara’s essay is “Transparency in City Government,” it is totally different when, as the old adage says, “the rubber meets the road.”

On Oct. 6, 2013, roughly two weeks after the column was printed and one week after the City Budget was approved by the City Commission, I requested from the City of San Benito what I have requested for the last five years, a copy of the Microsoft Excel formatted “approved budget files.” I perform my own year-over-year budget analysis. Receiving the Microsoft Excel formatted files just provides me the opportunity of not having to key in all the data again. It stunned me and surprised me when, after Mr. Lara emailed me that he would have the Finance Director provide me the files, the Finance Director emailed me that their “policy” was not to provide “editable formatted files” and that the approved budget in PDF format was available in the www.cityofsanbenito.com/financeBudgets.php website.

Although I requested a copy of the mentioned “policy governing what public domain formatted files can be released,” I still have not received said policy document. My gut feeling is that no such policy exists!

Although not required by law to inform the “reason for my request,” I did inform the City. It wasn’t until Oct. 18, 2013, that I received email notice from the office of the City Attorney notifying me that the City Attorney had been authorized by the City Manager to request a ruling from the Attorney General in connection with my written request for information on Oct. 6, 2013. As required by law, I was also provided a copy of the formal request for a ruling.

Even after I specifically asked for “Excel formatted files,” the City’s argument to the Texas OAG’s office is that I am requesting the proprietary software “computer program EXCEL” and is not subject to disclosure under the Public Information Act. All the Open Records Decisions and Attorney General Opinions cited by the City refer to “proprietary software,” which is “not” what I am requesting. I have my own legal license for the use of a copy of Microsoft Excel. Needless to say, I did submit my arguments within the required legal deadline for release of the files to the OAG.

As of Jan. 9, 2014, an opinion from the Office of the Attorney General is still pending.

Another example of the so-called greater transparency occurred on Dec. 10, 2013. If you look at your water bill, you will notice a $2.00 residential surcharge that appears every month; commercial accounts pay a different amount depending on the bin size. The most current bill identifies it as “INFRASTRUCTURE.” When the surcharge initially began in the Spring of 2009, it was identified as “GSC SURCHARGE-INF/ILL DU.” After questioning the reason for the surcharge, I was informed by the Water Department that the charge was to collect the funds necessary for “street repair/maintenance;” especially those streets that were being damaged by the garbage trucks.

On December 2013, I submitted an FOI (Freedom of Information Request) for an accounting of this particular surcharge: How much has been collected and how much has been spent on street repair/maintenance? What I did receive before the information would be provided was an invoice for $162.11. (INVOICE can be viewed in my blog.)

The invoice consists of one hour at $47.20 for “request review and task assignment,” two hours at $30.57 per hour (TTL $61.14) of “report set up and processing,” half an hour (.5) @ $18.26 of “completion review and approval,” and $35.52 for “overhead and system usage recoupment charges.”

A Grand Total $162.11 with the average billable hours (3.5 hrs), averaging to $36.17 per hour is the cost of “Greater Transparency.” I do understand, there is a cost involved but this seems to me more of attempt to discourage citizens like myself from requesting information. I can now understand and appreciate why the EDC was on a quest to attain autonomy or “self-management” and not be forced to pay the City Administration $30.57 per hour for their services.

I will spare you what the EDC encountered when they requested the Microsoft Word formatted Employee Policy Manual from the City Administration to prepare their own Policy Manual without reinventing the wheel. Suffice it to say, “It was not a pretty sight” at the public meeting and I hope I never see such public discourse again.

The truth of the matter in my opinion is “there is no separate accounting for the collection of this surcharge.” The money is collected and just goes into the Water and Sewer fund. There is no real audit trail to verify the money is being used for the initial intent of street repair/maintenance.

This “surcharge” is nothing more than a tax that the city can spend any way it wishes. The Certificates of Obligations of 2012 were approved and issued on the premise that the City did not have the funds for street repairs or maintenance. However, none of the CO monies were spent or expended in 2013. Based on oral reports at the City Commission meeting in December, the city spent $300,000 in 2013 for residential street repairs.

What really bothers me is the fact that I have never encountered so many roadblocks in requesting public information from the City of San Benito. The City Secretary’s office has always been and continues to be very “professional and accommodating” in my requests for public domain information. It is beyond the City Secretary’s office where the roadblocks have surfaced.

So, if the City of San Benito is going to profess or assert “Greater Transparency,” they need to start exercising it because I can’t afford $160 for information that is provided “free of charge” to members of the City Commission.

FYI, if you click on the link “Annual Budget, Fiscal Year 2013 – 2014” listed under the link provided above by the Finance Director, you will receive the infamous message “HTTP 404 Page Not Found” because the budget files were there for just one week and then just magically disappeared.

Editor’s Note: Contact Joe Rodriguez at www.Resacacity.blogspot.com.