06 Attachment 4 - Public Comments Received before 1100 Monday May 18 2020Subject: Building an Honest Budget
From: Rick Tinsley <rnt97@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2020 2:13 PM
To: Marcia Jensen <MJensen@losgatosca.gov>; BSpector <BSpector@losgatosca.gov>; Rob Rennie
<RRennie@losgatosca.gov>; Marica Sayoc <MSayoc@losgatosca.gov>
Cc: Richard Tinsley <ricktinsley1@gmail.com>
Subject: Building an Honest Budget
Los Gatos Town Council Members,
In preparation for the annual budget process please remember the following GFOA best practices as
pointed out in prior Finance Committee and Town Council meetings:
1 . Compare proposed budgets to previous ACTUAL results to clearly understand proposed increases or decreases in spending. Future budgets are necessarily estimates since none of us possess a crystal ball. On the other hand as time passes, prior period budgets (fiction) are replaced with actual results (facts). Comparing a proposed budget to a known fictional prior budget is obfuscation at its worst and violates all measures of common sense and transparency. It is intentionally misleading as it compares a proposed budget to historical numbers that are already known to be false.
2.Budgets should use ACTUAL salaries for all active employees, not falsely inflated top step pay
levels for all employees.
3.Budgets should list ACTUAL headcounts by department clearly delineating both active and vacantpositions projected by month. Budgets should be based on honest estimates of active employeesactually drawing a paycheck, not falsely inflated headcounts assuming every possible job is filled 365days per year with top step pay which is knowingly inaccurate. Currently the Town web site shows at
least nine paid job openings and there may be more. In three recent fiscal years this intentionallyinflated headcount added $1.7M -$1.9M per year to the budget which in turn removed these sameamounts from the Town Council's authority to allocate resources(as detailed in my Jan 22, 2020 emailto the Town Council).
As fiduciaries of the Town's finances, the Town Council must require the Staff to follow these widely recognized best practices for honest and transparent budgeting.
As always, let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Rick Tinsley
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