Saturday, October 21, 2017

Are Gloucester County’s Budgets By Administrator Fedors As Spectacular As York District Supervisor Bazzani Claims?

During a recent Gloucester County candidate forum, York District Supervisor Phillip Bazzani touted his vast experience in creating and managing budgets involving substantial amounts of money. He further insisted he knows every aspect of Gloucester’s 2018 budget. Supervisor Bazzani has also repeatedly publicly asserted that County Administrator Brent Fedors’ budget documents are the best he has seen in the 34 years he has lived in Gloucester. Are these assertions true? Here is what we know to be true and factual.


When Mr. Fedors presented his first budget to the Board of Supervisors and the public, it lacked details that were present in budgets prepared by his predecessors. When we pointed this out to Mr. Fedors he said,

“While we are not planning to add that level of detail to the proposed budget book for FY17, we are preparing a supplemental information piece for Board Members that does. I will make sure you get a copy when it is ready.”

After receiving his response, we forwarded the email conversation with Mr. Fedors and the following statement to the Board of Supervisors.

“I and others find Mr. Fedors' budget proposal and last response disturbing for a number of reasons and hope the majority of you do as well. Foremost, Mr. Fedors' budget process does not appear to include transparency; as the Code of Virginia requires the People to be presented information at the same time as the governing body. (Unless otherwise exempted by FOIA) Mr. Fedors' budget process does not appear to include an acceptable level of transparency which has led to restricting the People from data that is necessary to evaluate how their tax dollars are being spent. I will not say much more at this time as I understand Mr. Fedors' is new to the government game. On the other hand, his staff certainly are not. One would hope they would guide their new boss in a better direction.”

Mr. Fedors provided us the information piece as he promised, but even after we expressed our concerns to him and the Board of Supervisors, his FY18 budget demonstrated the same lack of transparency. Again we contacted Mr. Fedors via email to request line item data, which the Finance Director provided.

What we find concerning is the fact that Mr. Bazzani publicly stated Mr. Fedors’ FY17 Budget was the most comprehensive budget document he has seen in all his years of managing budgets. How could anyone make such a statement about a budget document that lacks the amount of detail Mr. Fedors’ lacked? The FY17 budget email conversation we have shared below clearly demonstrates the Board of Supervisor did not have the necessary data to effectively scrutinize Mr. Fedors’ proposed budget until several days after Mr. Bazzani praised Mr. Fedors.

We have provided Slideshare presentations of both of Mr. Fedors’ budgets and the last budget his predecessor prepared. We have provided our email conversations with Mr. Fedors, the Finance Director and the Board of Supervisors, as well as Slideshare presentations of the data we were forced to request from Mr. Fedors. We have also provided some video clips for your enjoyment. Though there are numerous other transparency shortcomings and many wasteful spending practices that we have not touched on here, we ask you to take special notice of the difference in the amount of data provided for budgeted expenditures for each department. You will see that Mr. Fedors combined budgeted expenditures into three line items for each department, whereas his predecessor had many more line items for each department. What are they trying to hide??

Written comments may be emailed to Kennysr61@gmail.com
Supervisor Bazzani stating he knows every aspect of the budget


 

Supervisor Bazzani praising Mr. Fedors' FY17 budget even before Mr. Fedors' information piece with detailed data was provided.






FY16 Budget (General fund expenditures begin on Slideshare page 75)
FY18 Budget (General fund expenditures begin on Slideshare page 71)
FY17 info we were forced to requested from Mr. Fedors
FY18 info we were forced to requested from Mr. Fedors
Email conversation about FY17 budget

03/20/16 at 11:57 AM


Board Members,

I and others find Mr. Fedors' budget proposal and last response disturbing for a number of reasons and hope the majority of you do as well. Foremost, Mr. Fedors' budget process does not appear to include transparency; as the Code of Virginia requires the People to be presented information at the same time as the governing body. (Unless otherwise exempted by FOIA) Mr. Fedors' budget process does not appear to include an acceptable level of transparency which has led to restricting the People from data that is necessary to evaluate how their tax dollars are being spent.

I will not say much more at this time as I understand Mr. Fedors' is new to the government game. On the other hand, his staff certainly are not. One would hope they would guide their new boss in a better direction.

Respectfully,

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Fedors, Brent" bfedors@gloucesterva.info

To: Kenny
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2016 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: 2017 Budget

Mr. Hogge -

While we are not planning to add that level of detail to the proposed budget book for FY17, we are preparing a supplemental information piece for Board Members that does.

I will make sure you get a copy when it is ready - likely Tuesday.

Brent

On Mar 17, 2016, at 9:22 AM, Kenny wrote:

Brent,

We are looking for a proposed budget document that contains at least as much information as the 2016 budget proposal which can be found at:  http://www.gloucesterva.info/Portals/0/finance/documents/FY16%20County%20Administrator's%20Proposed%20Budget.pdf?ver=2015-03-05-090048-737

A "general fund expenditure budget" as presented in the 2016 proposal is one example of the expanded data we would like to continue to see and are hoping the Supervisors are already assessing as they process the FY17 proposal. 

Kenny 

From: "Fedors, Brent" <bfedors@gloucesterva.info>
To: Kenny
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2016 12:37 PM
Subject: Re: 2017 Budget

Mr. Hogge -


There are also copies of the book available for public review at both libraries and in the County Administration office.

Please let me know if there are specific questions you have that I may be able to address - I'm glad to help in any way I can.

Brent

On Mar 16, 2016, at 9:55 AM, Kenny wrote:

Hello Mr. Fedors,

I would like to get a copy of the "2017 Budget Book" that has been provided to the Supervisors. The information posted on the County's website is not detailed enough for the People to do any sort of analysis of what is being proposed.

Thank you sir,


Email conversation about FY18 budget data


Mar 20 at 11:15 AM

To Kenny


Message body


 Attached is the information as requested.

 1st tab – General Fund by Expenditure Line Item

2nd tab – Provides information on the Total Transfers Out line item from the General Fund

3rd tab – Capital Projects

4th tab – External Agencies Funding Request and what is included in the Proposed Budget

Please let me know if you have questions or need anything further.

Thanks,

Stephanie


From: Fedors, Brent
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2017 2:06 PM
To: Kenny
Cc: Tinsley, Stephanie <stinsley@gloucesterva.info>; Lewis, Christi <clewis@gloucesterva.info>
Subject: Re: FY18 Budget Info Request

Mr. Hogge -

I am forwarding this to Ms. Tinsley who will coordinate our response.

Thank you for your inquiry,

Brent


On Mar 19, 2017, at 9:51 AM, Kenny wrote:

Hello Mr. Fedors,

Hope this finds you in good health and spirits.

Can I get a copy of the proposed FY18 line item budget and proposed capital improvement expenditures? If possible; I would also like something that reflects the name of all external agencies/nongovernmental organizations that are requesting FY18 funding and how much each is asking for. Electronic copies are preferred.

Thank you,

Kenny

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Gloucester County Employee Pay, A Response

It’s a bit disheartening to run as a change agent in 2013, and then read “Sounds like the same old empty promises that have fueled the waste of Gloucester County taxpayer dollars in other areas. Like renting our libraries and health department spaces instead of owning them and not creating a revenue stream from health department rent that is paid to Gloucester by the Commonwealth, not consolidating compatible school and county services, building more parks than our local government should ever be responsible for and numerous other wasteful practices.”

 We get elected on our own platforms, then get saddled with all the sins of previous Boards.  If voters vote for a change, and the change candidates win, why don’t we at least start with the premise that something’s changed.  I’ll be happy to address your outlined areas of concern at a later date, but right now, the only thing that relates to “promises” is that of a coming employee pay increase.

“Same old empty promises”?  The only time I believe you’ve heard this Board (certainly Phillip and I) state an intent to raise pay was in 2016.  And we did, with a 4% across the board raise.  Now you may certainly argue as to whether or not that was enough, but we did say we’d provide a pay raise, and we delivered.  Was that the “old empty promise” you were referring to?

The Board is saying that a raise is coming in FY18.  Based on previous experience with this Board, you should count on it.  Unless, of course, you have a NEW Board next year … they are also promising pay raises.  Only difference is, they haven’t delivered on a promise yet.

Thanks for listening,

John Meyer