$10,000,000 Misdirected; Budget Crisis Suddenly Gets Worse
At Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council meeting our honorable elected representatives found out that our fiscal reserve funds were overpopulated with bucks that belonged someplace else. I haven’t been able to view the video – the City Clerk’s link doesn’t work – so I’m relying on a Voice of OC article.
It seems monies that should have gone to Fullerton’s Redevelopment Successor Agency and other sequestered funds were being counted in the general fund reserve pool – $10,000,000 worth. How and why this occurred wasn’t spelled out in the article except as some sort of accounting error:
“These funds remain part of the city’s overall fund balance, but are now set aside in a way that better reflects their intended purpose,” said Steven Avalos, the city’s finance director, at Tuesday night’s meeting.
Wow, that’s an application of bureaucratic soft soap, massaging what amounts to an egregious accounting error, or worse.
What it means is that all previous budget discussions led by Mr. Avalos and his predecessor have been nonsense for the past 5 years. And decisions in just the past year obliviously come into sharper focus for their foolishness – like going in-house with ambulance drivers and hiring a bunch of new, permanent “firefighters” based on a one-time FEMA grant. Parenthetically, I note that Mr. Avalos was appointed City Treasurer earlier in the Tuesday meeting. That’s a bit funny, really.
The Voice reports heated and loud interlocutions between Ahmad Zahra, the perpetual grandstander, liar, and victim, in exchanges with Mayor Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap. The exchanges as reported generated a lot more heat than light, but so it is when Zahra begins his sanctimonious routine. Ironically Zahra says a new sales tax increase won’t help.
We are informed by the article that City Manager Eddie Manfro is going to meet with the ad hoc Budget Sustainability Committee on March 30th which seems like just a stall of 12 days.
One interesting statement was uttered by Jung in a Voice interview:
“I think we were set up to fail.”
We don’t know what this means because apparently the reporter didn’t follow up. Does the Mayor believe this misallocation of funds was deliberate to create a budget crisis at some point? Who knows?
Things are grim in City Hall, and a cactus garden in front isn’t going to cheer anybody up.
I wonder why Jung and Dunlap are defending the budget/finance department’s screw up. Zahra doesn’t care to protect staff anymore because he’s leaving and blaming others is more fun.
This is what happens when you let Bushala’s puppets run the city. What an embarrassment
Hi Elijah. What has Zahra been doing for seven years? That’s right hiring more overpriced “firefighters” that’s what.
Yes, let’s hire more incompetent boobs like Steven Avalos and give them big pay raises.
Call in the State.
So Zahra is blaming the City Manager? Which one? The one he just voted to appoint?
Pretty funny – the city’s Ad Hoc Financial Sustainability Committee didn’t catch any of this with Tony Bushala and Jack Dean as members.
Or with Derek Smith, Zahra’s union goon appointee.
Still, the City Council hasn’t “caught” any of this in 5 years, and that includes the budgetary ignoramuses Charles and Zahra.
Give me a break. Nothing was “misdirected”. This is outright incompetence at best, and criminal at worst.
Que the next new city manager in 5…4…3…
Wait until we find out where it went.
They know where it went – into General Fund reserves. And they know where it’s going . The monies aren’t “set aside” as Avalos said. They have to be returned to the funds they belonged in originally.
And for some reason I get the feeling that the Water Fund is involved in this, although the Voice reporter didn’t give any details other than Redevelopment.
According to linkedin Avalos isn’t an accountant or a financial expert at all. Just a dude with a worthless MPA from…LaVerne and Shirley U.
Public comment on Feb 7, 2023:
“Instead you’re going to fund it [fire pay increases] with money we don’t have and then cut everything like the government always does and go ‘oh my goodness we have nothing now’ and then put a tax in front us.”.
Jung today:
“Jung said a sales tax is essential now, and urged Fullerton residents who’ve overwhelmingly denied previous tax increases to approve the new one that he’s seeking to put on the ballot that would go toward fixing the city’s crumbling roads.”
He was right.
Any new revenue from a sales tax will not go toward roads. It will go toward Hero Mafia Union pensions and salary increases for the current gaggle of incompetents pretending to run the city.
That’s what happened in Westminster.
Screw up and expect us to give more?
LMAO
The answer is NO.
…the cause…
“It’s not a revenue problem, it’s a spending problem” ( Dunlap)
…The coverup…
“Zahra said he has “no idea” what they’re going to cut.
“When the public really truly understands what’s happening and the consequences of this there’s going to be a distrust in the entire city,” Zahra said. “The distrust is not just in our financing, but distrust in this council.”.
Says the immigrant/marriage fraudster.
Zahra speaks as though he had earned trust to begin with. He had a negative public trust balance since he was elected.
Since he snuck into the country.
Reading the Voice of OC article yesterday was the absolute best way to start this weekend. I was literally laughing my ass off the entire time. Only could the hopeless and hapless city of Fullerton figure out a way to fuck themselves even worse. Who misses a $10 million bust in your accounting? Oh that’s right, Fullerton does. Because it’s just Fullerton being Fullerton.
The best part is you just finished hiring a bunch of pensioned tax drivers driving around in 30 year old thrice hand me down ambulances using door magnet decals because you have incompetent leadership in the fire department with a scheme cooked up by a dishonest idiot fire chief. Fullerton is a perpetual loser.
The aggregate ineptitude and failure of Domer, Levitt, and Manfro casts a long, dark, and painful shadow over Fullerton taxpayers.
You forgot Felz, Meyer and Armstrong in that fraternity of Fullerton’s Finest.
Fullerton should be put into receivership and run by a court appointed Administrator until everything is brought back into order.
Jung, Dunlap, Charles, Zahra get ALL THE BLAME!
Fullerton never disappoints with its endless disappointments.
How about asking the fox foundation to play back $5.5 million it still owes the city and currently pays back with the cities own money that it receives from the drip coffee lease.
Yeah, has anybody thought about that????