$15 Million Spent, No Vote

Here I posted about proposed changes the fiscal services department wanted to make to some policies and procedures in their department.

One of the changes accepted by the commission was to change the expenditure report from listing payments of $500.00 and more to only listing payments of $5,000.00 and more.

According to the fiscal services department..."Currently, 96% of total claims are listed in the $500 report, which amounted to 3,406 lines for a year. The $500 report is very labor intensive for Fiscal Services Department. If the report was changed to the $5,000 report 88% of total claims would be listed on the report with only 657 lines. This would be a reduction of 81% of claims listed with only a 8% reduction in the amount of claims reported".

2004:

Paid: $42,929,467 (taken from each of the consent agenda reports for each month)

Listed: $41,198,839 (same source)

Diff: $1,730,628 - 96% reporting as was stated in the above statement.

2005 (from 3/01 forward when the change was implemented):

Paid: $30,563,273

Listed: $26,205,036

Diff: $4,358,237 - 86% reporting

2006:

Paid: $35,158,273

Listed: $29,936,147

Diff: $5,222,126 - 85% reporting

2007:

Paid: $40,553,008

Listed: $35,465,706

Diff: $5,087,302 - 87% reporting

2008 (to date, 2/19)

Paid: $7,319,739

Listed: $6,596,499

Diff: $723,240 - 90% reporting

From 3/01/2005 thru 2/19/2008 the city has paid $15,390,905 without a vote.

And, according to my worksheet, this doesn't include the electric bills.