John Musolf spends many hours attempting to serve our community with his financial expertise. It behooves the council to consider John's recommendations. Will they? We'll have to wait and see, but based on their decision to "kill" the police department management study, it's doubtful.
Please read what John recently sent to the town council & staff.
Art
*************************************************************************************
Mayor and Council
Oro Valley has conducted past professional management studies of some of its departments such as Building Safety, Public Works, Legal, and Library to provide a detailed analysis of how the Town compares to established standards and benchmarks of operations.
Management studies are conducted with the intent of utilizing an experienced and independent third party to review current strategies and operations and make recommendations to improve efficiency and delivery of services.
Two management studies of the Police and Parks/Recreation Departments had been approved and scheduled to commence in the summer of 2010.
The new Oro Valley Mayor and Council decided to eliminate those studies.
Therefore, it falls to the individual taxpayer to question the operations and budgets for various Town Departments.
Please review the attached analysis that I have made of the PRLCR department (which contains the Parks/Recreation department). I would also request that this email be made part of the Oro Valley Public Records.
Thank You
John Musolf
Prior to the election of May 18, 2010, the old Mayor and Council created a new super-department (a super-grab-bag of two disparate departments (Parks & Recreation and Library) and threw in some Cultural Resource project teams) in an attempt to become more efficient in delivery of services and reduce the budget. In my opinion, the creation of the PLCLR could be comparable to an attempt to “rearrange the deck-chairs on the Titanic”.
Discussion of the new PLCLR super-department
In the memorandum dated March 15, 2010 to the Mayor and Council concerning the new PLCLR Department formation:
Page 127-128
Staffing
Parks and Recreation
“Assistant Aquatics Manager: Recommend elimination of this 30 hour per week (0.75) benefit-eligible position which is currently vacant. Workload of this position to be completed by Water Safety Instructors (WSIs) with 26 hours per week (0.65 FTE) added into the WSI budget line. This change will result in a savings of $6000 annually”.
How can you count savings of $6000 when the position was already vacant? Only in government accounting can an already vacant position be counted as savings.
Library
“Library Technical Assistant 1 (LTA1): Two existing staff members filling LTA1 positions planned to leave their employment with the Town by the end of May 2010. It was recommended that these two 19 hour, non-benefit eligible positions be combined into one 35-38 hour per week, benefit-eligible LTA1 position”.
Swap two part time non-benefit positions (19 hours each) that cost the Town no benefit dollars with one (38 hour) benefit-eligible dollar position. Not only have you maintained the same 38 hours (no hour reduction) but are causing the Town to pick up added benefit dollars.
Page 130
Purpose and Justification for Consolidation
1. The consolidation, in combination with the budgeting process, will reflect a decrease of 11 staff members in parks & recreation and the library, and a net savings of $64,000 in personnel costs.
There was no statement in the memorandum supporting the decrease of 11 staff members and the savings of $64,000 for setting up the consolidated PRL&CR.
However, the following information was documented in the FY2010/2011Budget.
Parks & Recreation
According to the recommended budget the Parks & Recreation went down from 27.56 (2009) to 27.05 (2010) to 23.95(2011). This 3.10 personnel reduction between 2010 and 2011 was due to .70 reduction of park monitor, 1.00 reduction of park monitor, .75 reduction of assistant aquatics manager (position already vacant), and .65 reduction of water safety instructor.
Library
According to the recommended budget the Library went down from 18.68 (2009) to 18.53 (2010) to 18.36 (2011). A personnel reduction of .17 personnel between 2010 and 2011.
A new group called Cultural Resources was added to the PLCLR super-department with 4 new project teams workload.
Cultural Resources Projects
Property Management & Maintenance (Dual Assignments)
PRL&CR Director
Parks Maintenance Manager
Parks Maintenance Crew Leader
Programs & Special Events (Dual Assignments)
Recreation Manager
Assistant Recreation Manager
Historic Preservation Commission (Dual Assignments)
PRL&CR Director
Senior Office Specialist
Grants & Funding (Dual Assignments)
PRL&CR Director
MultiModal Planner
There was no workload analysis for the dual assignments that some positions are responsible for. For example, the PRL&CR Director is listed as 1 FTE under Administration but has dual assignments (increased workload) under the Cultural Resource Project Teams (Property Management & Maintenance, Historic Preservation Commission and Grants & Funding). There is no decimal workload analysis of how much time will be spent on dual assignments by these positions.
There is also no line item for Operations & Maintenance cost for these 4 Project Teams.
The new Mayor and Council had an opportunity to validate the correctness of that new super-department formation by allowing the Parks/Recreation independent Management Study to proceed.
Instead, that study was eliminated.
Perhaps the new Mayor and Council would like to revisit the justification for the PLCLR super-department.
Friday, July 23, 2010
A Message From Salette Latas
I am taking this opportunity to let all of our bloggers know that I will NOT tolerate any comments on this post, (or any other post) that promotes any innuendos or rumors as it pertains to Salette Latas and David Andrews.
I spoke to Salette for more than three hours and requested that she write her thoughts and I would put it on the blog.
I have seen fit to remove ALL comments that were placed on this blog previously(on a prior posting) and I want you all to know my position, with no chance for misunderstanding.
Whether you are an "old" blogger, a new blogger or a blogger who has chosen to use a new pseudonym, if you violate MY policy, you will no longer have access to blogging here.
I appreciate I am addressing less than a handful of individuals, and apologize to all our other readers, but this is a democracy. Therefore, if you can't accept OUR rules, you are welcome to leave.
Please! Don't force us to go to "monitored comments" because you can't accept our rules.
Here is Salette's message.
Art
PS---For those that may not know it, Salette & David were married on June 12, 2010.
Anyone desiring to offer their good wishes are welcome to do so here.
*************************************************************************************
Art,
I'm concerned about some of the comments on the blog being both false and defamatory. In particular, any implication that there was any improper relationship between me and David while he was Town Manager of Oro Valley are untrue and defamatory. In addition, neither Loomis, Carter, Kunisch, nor Abbott ever said anything to me or David (or in our presence) about any improper behavior. The suggestion that any of them did, and that they somehow should be congratulated for uncovering corruption and rooting it out of the town is false and defamatory.
We do have legal advice as to how to pursue the identities of those responsible for the libelous comments and how to take action against them. (For more information, please see http://www.jaburgwilk.com/news--events/how-to-discover-the-identity-of-an-anonymous-internet-author.aspx) But before it comes to that, I'd like to ask you to please record any information you might have about the identity of the offending bloggers, and then remove any comments that allege any improprieties during David's tenure as Town Manager, or that allege that Loomis or anyone else took any action to address such. None of these statements is true, and we are prepared to protect ourselves against the harm caused by them. As you know, such statements may also constitute a crime under ARS 13-3004 (http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/13/03004.htm).
If anyone has any information about those making defamatory comments, either oral (slander) or written (libel), it would be very helpful if you could write the particulars (who, what, when, where, how) on a piece of paper and have it signed and notarized. (You can get documents notarized free at your bank or at Town Hall.) Please send these signed statements to me at 10645 N. Oracle Rd, Suite 121, PMB #194, Oro Valley, AZ 85737.
With kindest best wishes,
Salette
July 23, 2010 7:25 AM
I spoke to Salette for more than three hours and requested that she write her thoughts and I would put it on the blog.
I have seen fit to remove ALL comments that were placed on this blog previously(on a prior posting) and I want you all to know my position, with no chance for misunderstanding.
Whether you are an "old" blogger, a new blogger or a blogger who has chosen to use a new pseudonym, if you violate MY policy, you will no longer have access to blogging here.
I appreciate I am addressing less than a handful of individuals, and apologize to all our other readers, but this is a democracy. Therefore, if you can't accept OUR rules, you are welcome to leave.
Please! Don't force us to go to "monitored comments" because you can't accept our rules.
Here is Salette's message.
Art
PS---For those that may not know it, Salette & David were married on June 12, 2010.
Anyone desiring to offer their good wishes are welcome to do so here.
*************************************************************************************
Art,
I'm concerned about some of the comments on the blog being both false and defamatory. In particular, any implication that there was any improper relationship between me and David while he was Town Manager of Oro Valley are untrue and defamatory. In addition, neither Loomis, Carter, Kunisch, nor Abbott ever said anything to me or David (or in our presence) about any improper behavior. The suggestion that any of them did, and that they somehow should be congratulated for uncovering corruption and rooting it out of the town is false and defamatory.
We do have legal advice as to how to pursue the identities of those responsible for the libelous comments and how to take action against them. (For more information, please see http://www.jaburgwilk.com/news--events/how-to-discover-the-identity-of-an-anonymous-internet-author.aspx) But before it comes to that, I'd like to ask you to please record any information you might have about the identity of the offending bloggers, and then remove any comments that allege any improprieties during David's tenure as Town Manager, or that allege that Loomis or anyone else took any action to address such. None of these statements is true, and we are prepared to protect ourselves against the harm caused by them. As you know, such statements may also constitute a crime under ARS 13-3004 (http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/13/03004.htm).
If anyone has any information about those making defamatory comments, either oral (slander) or written (libel), it would be very helpful if you could write the particulars (who, what, when, where, how) on a piece of paper and have it signed and notarized. (You can get documents notarized free at your bank or at Town Hall.) Please send these signed statements to me at 10645 N. Oracle Rd, Suite 121, PMB #194, Oro Valley, AZ 85737.
With kindest best wishes,
Salette
July 23, 2010 7:25 AM
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