El Cerrito’s financial health is under increasing scrutiny, and rightly so. Residents deserve clear, actionable insights into the city’s long-term obligations, especially when it comes to pension liabilities. Unfortunately, the city’s decision to pay NHA Advisors over $100,000 for financial consulting services has left more questions than answers.
🔍 Where Did the Money Go?
According to the city’s own records, NHA’s work for El Cerrito between 2020 and 2023 covered a variety of services, but the pension-specific consulting totaled only about $18,000:
- $7,500 for an early pension consulting engagement (2021),
- $6,643.75 for 2022-23 pension consulting,
- $4,518.75 for 2023-24 pension consulting.
That’s less than 20% of the total $103,747.92 paid to NHA. The remainder of the expenses—over $85,000—was allocated to other types of work, including general financial consulting, meetings, document reviews, and most notably, library-related consulting.
More importantly City records indicate NHA did not conduct pension analysis in 2024 or 2025 so how could they be subject matter experts on El Cerrito’s ballooning pension liability?
🚨 The Bulk of the Work: TRANS Fees
And the most significant slice of NHA’s consulting pie? You guessed it: TRANS fees—short-term municipal borrowing used to cover cash flow gaps when revenues lag behind expenses. In El Cerrito’s case, a staggering $35,000 was paid for Tax and Revenue Anticipation Notes (TRANs) services.
Here’s the catch: TRANs are essentially municipal payday loans. Cities—and other government entities like school districts—resort to them when reserves are low or even negative. That was exactly the situation in El Cerrito during this period. The city’s reserves were not just low—they were negative. NHA wasn’t providing forward-thinking strategies to address long-term fiscal health; it was facilitating quick-fix borrowing that covered up more profound financial instability.
📚 Library Consulting Costs
Nearly $13,000 of the NHA contract was directed to library projects:
- CD Plaza Library work: $1,300
- Financial Library Consulting: $2,175
- Library Measure Financial Analysis: $8,287.50
- New Library Financial Consulting: $325
While libraries are valuable community assets, these expenditures are not directly tied to the urgent issue of pension liability—a problem with far-reaching fiscal implications. Spending tens of thousands on unrelated projects while providing only limited analysis of the city’s pension obligations is a misalignment of priorities.
🏛️ What Was Missing?
NHA’s pension explanations failed to deliver clear, digestible insights for decision-makers and residents. Instead of breaking down the city’s pension liabilities in a way that could guide long-term financial planning, the consulting reports remained vague, contributing to an incomplete understanding of the city’s fiscal future.
Here’s the problem:
- The presentation lacked actionable strategies to mitigate growing pension costs.
- It failed to explain the long-term impacts of the city’s liabilities on residents and services.
- It distracted attention with unrelated projects, muddying the city’s financial narrative.
📊 The Breakdown
🚨 Why This Matters
El Cerrito is at a financial crossroads. Rising pension liabilities are threatening essential services and putting taxpayers at risk. Yet, the city has spent over $100,000 on consulting that delivered little in the way of substantive analysis or actionable solutions. Meanwhile, unrelated consulting, including library projects and an overemphasis on short-term borrowing through TRANs, consumed precious resources.
💬 The Call to Action
Residents should demand greater transparency and accountability from both consultants and city leadership. We need:
- Clear, specific financial analyses of pension liabilities.
- Actionable recommendations to stabilize and reduce long-term costs.
- Transparency in how consulting dollars are spent, ensuring public funds are used wisely.
Our financial future depends on it.
#ElCerritoDeservesBetter #FiscalTransparency #PublicFinance #PensionLiability #MunicipalFinance
El Cerrito Committee for Responsible Government (ECCRG) 