YOU CAN’T JUST LEAVE THOSE WHO CREATED THE PROBLEM IN CHARGE OF THE SOLUTION is titled –
GFOA Best Practices Budget on Timely Financial Reports
It’s easy to get excited about organizational changes when you’re the force behind them. Still, it’s typically disastrous for an outside entity to recommend a necessary change.
There are seven steps in overcoming change. However, when the state auditor released their findings, El Cerrito spent about five minutes in shock the next year attempting to discredit the state auditor and has been in deep denial in the nearly three years since the original findings and recommendations in March 2021.
In addition, the City has implemented a practice of withholding financial information.
GFOA recommends that governments improve the timeliness of financial reports.
The fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, yet the City Council agenda made no mention of the year-end close in September, made no mention of the year-end close.
The GFOA states, “Financial reports are intended to meet decision-makers’ needs. Accordingly, timeliness is identified as one of the characteristics of information in financial reporting in Concepts Statement No. 1 of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), Objectives of Financial Reporting. To accomplish this objective, financial reports must be available in time to inform decision-making.
Therefore, financial reports should be published as soon as possible after the end of the reporting period. To save time and avoid potential delays, the government should distribute its financial report electronically (e.g., posting on the website or e-mailing an electronic file).
Ignoring the advice of the GFOA and withholding financial information has become commonplace. For years, the City has leaned on the excuse of not having sufficient staff. Yet they found staff time to set aside two-thirds of the non-restricted general fund and then spin the story on social media and in the monthly Newsletter.
The GFOA recommends a minimum of two months of unrestricted general fund reserves. The City General Fund Budget is shy of $60 million; therefore, the General Fund Balance recommended amount is shy of $10 million, yet the City Manager and City Council have depleted reserves to half of the recommended level of unrestricted funds.
City leadership asks for decisions from the Council and but the Council has no basis for an intelligent response. These poorly thought out decisions, are the same types of decisions that led the City to the brink of bankruptcy.
The lack of publicizing financial information has been a years-long excuse. It is no longer an issue of lack of resources. The years-long practice of circumventing the requirement to provide financial reports and withholding year-end results amounts to deception by omission.
In addition to the long term reprocussions of bad decisions, the unfunded liability continues to climb. According to the City, the unfunded liability has blossomed by 21% in two years. You’ll find it buried on page 287 of the packet. The amount has grown from $70 million to a whopping $85 million.
You may recall that EECRG reported just 60% FAB membership, creating a risk of meeting cancellation. El Cerrito, someone could not make it, and today’s September 26th meeting is CANCELED. Although interviews for a new FAB member were scheduled for last Tuesday, they have neither publicly disqualified nor appointed them.
In a few days, the City Manager will release the Newsletter with lots of “happy talk” while the City finances remain in shambles.
City leaders are clearly out of touch and have behaved irresponsibly for so long that they think it is a Commonplace practice of incompetence and abuse.
The City plans a ballot measure requesting more taxes. Before El Cerrito gets another taxpayer bailout, reforms need to be implemented to make the agency more accountable to taxpayers.
Here’s how you can help:
- Share this post with other residents.
- Comment on the blog.
- Attend the monthly Financial Advisory Board meetings in person.
- Council meetings are both remote and in-person. The City Council meeting will be on October 3. The schedule is here.
- The next FAB had to be canceled due to an absence. Please write to the City Council requesting that they fill the vacancies.
El Cerrito Committee for Responsible Government (ECCRG) 
Since I actually live in El Cerrito and know some facts, let me clue one and all in on FAB.
1. Two members quit. One is busy traveling. The other kind of disappeared. My take on that is that somebody did not do the training required by City Clerk. But that’s my guess.
2. There has been much publicity seeking new members on advisory boards and that includes FAB. Not many people have the time or interest. Therefore, it’s a tough sell.
3. I recall a special council meeting a week ago for interviews. I believe one candidate was for the FAB and another was for EDC. That special meeting blew up with neo-nazi Zoom calls.
4. There was a meeting scheduled for 26 Sept. That, I will bet, was canceled due to the neo-nazi crowd that hijacked our council meeting last week. It is time to shut off Zoom calls. However, the City cannot infringe on the Constitutional rights of haters. This will all be worked out soon, but everything must be done legally.
5. So there is no conspiracy to not have a full complement of bodies on FAB or other advisory boards. Every does the best they can.
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Thank you for your reply. There’s one factual error. FAB meetings are neither recorded nor accessible online, so there would be no need to cancel due to the miscreants calling in.
The City canceled because one person could not attend. Three people are needed; if one is absent, the meeting is canceled. Two, the only way you would know about training requirements is if someone from the City told you.
That release of privileged info is inappropriate. If said member told you, then you would not need to guess.
Lastly, the substance of the blog relates to transparency of information. Do you have any comments?
Thank you again for your comments.
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To be clear, the special council meeting was a hybrid and the nazi group crashed it using Zoom. I was not referring to a FAB meeting. The purpose of the special meeting, from what I understand, was to interview potential advisory board people.
So the process is working. I will presume at least one person will be approved by council on 3 Oct. for an advisory board seat. It’s all standard procedure and nobody is attempting to keep people off FAB. In fact, the opposite is true.
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