Additional notes on campaign
statement by Alan Day:
"With talk
of MORE big
spending, MORE
red ink, MORE
deficit budgets and higher
bills on the way. Hitting residents, businesses, and home
owners associations in our community hard."
Expanded
summary comment:
This talk is from EID critics,
not from EID. Instead of "big
spending", EID has been cutting costs down to bare minimums.
- EID has cut its 5-year Capital
Improvement Plan by a total of $202 million
since the start of 2010.
- EID has reduced employment from its record high in 2007 to
the lowest level since 2001.
Employee head count in 2010 was 74% of 2007 employment.
- EID has further reduced labor costs through furlough days
and outsourcing lab operations.
- EID has placed special emphasis on measures to improve
efficiency throughout its operations for years.
Large example: Use of a solar array to nearly eliminate use of
PG&E power purchases at the EDH Wastewater Treatment Plant.
There is no "Red Ink".
There's at least one large accounting or reporting issue in the Comprehensive Annual
Financial Reports, which show operating surpluses in one table and deficits in another. The difference is that the
operating
budget does not cover depreciation and amortization, but another table
combines it into reported operating results. The difference was $18
million in 2010.
- The table that matches the budget shows a 2010 operating
income of $7,711,405.
- A "combining table" adds in the $18 million to operating
expenses to produce an operating income of ($12,269,880).
- Table #2, reporting changes in net assets, picks up the
combining table results, making it look as if there has been an
operating deficit of more than $10 million every year.
Whatever accountants may think, this reporting easily fools readers
from the general public.
The
most important point is that at least within the last 10 years actual
operations have never run a true deficit, and EID has never budgeted
for a deficit.Under current board
philosophy increases will be gradual, consistent, and were
estimated in 2009 to be 5% in each of the next 2 years.
Paste rate increases
ranged up to 62.4% in a single year (1999, wastewater rate increase).
"The current El Dorado Irrigation District Board of
Directors has been on a spending and rate increasing spree over the
last 8 years, voting 5-0 in lockstep much of the time, and they seem
content with continuing business as usual.
There has been no spending spree. This
board has stripped out everything feasible to remove from the Capital
Improvement Plan, having cut it by $202 million since the start of
2010.Annual operating expenses have been cut by $8.5 million relative to 2007.