Everyone is looking at the economy today and wondering:
How could we have listened to these executives and legislators the last few years?
They told us everything was great, that we were in a strong financial position, but we needed those extra tax dollars to build for the future.
Wrongfully, we assumed that they we talking about the future our communities, not about building their own.
Every day we hear of executives leaving failing organizations with huge compensation packages, leaving taxpayers with the bills to pay.
No, I am not talking about the national crisis we are all watching carefully with failing financial institutions and a taxpayer bailout looming.
I am talking about Ari Noonan’s article last Tuesday, Sept. 23, “The End of the Jerry Fulwood Era Begins to Take Form.”
I have to admit Ari had me feeling sorry for Mr. Fulwood for a few seconds.
Then I started to think :
• What did Jerry Fulwood bring to the city of Culver City?
• What has he accomplished in five years.
Jerry Fulwood came to Culver City as the Chief Administrative Officer, and over the past five years he has served in that capacity.
As Ari related in his article, throughout the city’s 91-year history, we have had a chief administrative officer-led City Hall. What were the reasons for changing to a city manager-form of government? And who would benefit the most from this change.
As Ari said in his article, we probably won’t know the answer to a lot of questions until well after Mr. Fulwood is gone.
Personal Finances
Let’s look at what we do know.
After six years, Mr. Fulwood will retire from the city with a lifetime pension that will be $40,000 more a year in income than he made in his first year at Culver City.
Mr. Fulwood is definitely one person who is going to benefit greatly from this change. This isn’t even figuring in the hundreds of thousands of dollars he has collected in additional benefits over the past six years.
What has Mr. Fulwood accomplished since coming to Culver City a little over five years ago?
Culver City was not a poor Chief Administrative Officer-led city on the verge of bankruptcy in 2003.
If you look at the growth and projects that are in Culver City today, most were planned, approved and started long before Jerry Fulwood arrived here.
A New System
Mr. Fulwood did give us a whole new streamlined government system that included cutting wasteful management positions and putting aside money for the city’s future infrastructure repairs and liability costs.
The only problem was, positions were cut on paper from the budget, but the money was moved into these accounts for the future.
In many of these positions, the people did not leave and the salary accounts ran short at the end of the year. Not to worry. Under the new financial system, we just use the money we put aside for the future to balance the budget this year. This system would fail if the money set aside for the future was exceeded.
This became a big problem in January of ’06. Something needed to be done because the accounts were becoming dangerously low. People who were cut from the budget in ‘04/’05 and ‘05/’06 were not leaving.
A Matter of Timing
The city was voting on the new Charter and the City Manager form of leadership. City Hall’s budget staff was increasing in size, and executives were continually moving money. They needed more time or this house of cards would fall in on itself.
How could we prop up this budget to give us some time?
Someone in City Hall came up with the idea of a two-year budget.
This is how it works:
The budget for ‘06/’07 has to be signed by the City Council by July 1, 2006. The budget for ‘05/’06 is not closed out until September 2006. If City Hall could get a two-year budget approved on July 1, 2006, for the ‘06/’07 and ‘07/’08, then the community would not know how the money was being spent. When the city overspent its budget, the community would not know until three months after their two-year budget for ‘08/’09 and ‘09/’10 had been approved.
What a Facade
As Ari said, we probably wouldn’t know the outcome until well after Mr. Fulwood is gone. Mr. Fulwood’s budgets for the past five years and his financial programs are a facade like no other the city of Culver City has seen since they tore down the MGM backlots in the late 1970s to build Studio Estates.
How could this happen without someone finding out?
The answer is, people knew what was going on at City Hall, but they chose to remain silent for their own personal reasons.
Some because of retaliation they have suffered or witnessed. Others suffer. Some were motivated by personal gain.
Those who have raised concerns have had career-ending demotions, assignment changes and forced retirements.
Sealed Off
Those who remained employed were removed from any position connected with financial matters in the city.
A lot of these very experienced and educated employees were removed and replaced by people with a lot less experience and education — people who would not question and are very grateful for their high-level positions considering their lack of experience.
This answers a question that City Council member Andy Weissman asked a few weeks ago about why in the past few years we have needed Jack Hoffman, an outside consultant, to negotiate city employee contracts, when, in the past, this job had been handled by the City Personnel Director.
What Answer?
Councilmember Weissman was not pleased when he asked the City Manager how long Mr. Hoffman’s services would be needed, and the response was that no one knew.
The Council then approved paying $125 per hour for 250 hours of work, or $30,000, for the year.
I can tell you this they will pay Mr. Hoffman more than $30,000 this year. Just look at what we have paid him over the past few years.
We have hired and promoted numerous management personnel in the city in recent years. Each time, the City Council was told these are the best and the brightest we could find.
A Loss of Efficiency
Then they returned to the Council to hire consultants, or outside legal counsel, to handle the jobs that our best and brightest can’t, and still we give them big raises.
Mr. Weissman is right. In the past, under the old Chief Administrative Officer-led City Hall, city staff handled all of these duties for a lot less money — and we got better results.
Ari, I am not so sure Mr. Fulwood’s silence in the face of criticism is that he is such a private person.
There are other possible reasons for his silence — arrogance, lack of knowledge of the subject, or silence so as not to incriminate oneself.
The city is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars each month in this financial situation and you compound that with the state and national economic problems.
The city can’t afford to wait for Mr. Fulwood to retire next spring and for him to help select the best and brightest as his replacement.
Ari, by next year there made not be any water in the bucket for someone new to get any toes wet.
The City Council needs to act now.
Before retiring last year from the Police Dept., Lt. Greg Smith survived his own bout with demotion. For a period, he represented the Police Dept. at City Hall in budget negotiations.
