A.G. Gancarski
File this under: Sam Mousa gives a budget lesson.
Though the transition between the Alvin Brown and Lenny Curry administrations has been (for the most part) free of tension, matters of professional pride can and do become personalized. That was proved true once again during the Fiscal Responsibility meeting at 3 p.m. Thursday, when Brown’s budget director, Glen Hansen, and Curry transition team Executive Director Sam Mousa both made interesting comments.
Hansen spoke first, explaining the budget process in a rapid-fire cadence that suggested a certain frustration with the process itself. He talked about the estimates of the state contribution to the city budget, saying that the council auditor wasn’t confident in the state numbers. He also addressed the JEA contribution to the budget: Expected to be $114 million this year, it is “set in the charter to expire in 2016”, and, anyway, JEA is “very heavily leveraged.”
In what could only be interpreted as a criticism of the old hands, such as Mousa and the “budget swat team” he has assembled, as well as some of the other people in the room, he talked about the Capital Improvement Fund’s primary constraint being “debt affordability,” a condition made worse by “cleanup from previous administrations.”
He added, as Susie Wiles looked on impassively, that he wasn’t pointing any fingers. Except that, well, you know, he was.
Hansen also talked about public works, which will be a headache for the Curry team, as the “backlog [of projects] continues to build” with sidewalks, roads, and other issues like the Liberty Street crater, which will be Curry’s problem in three weeks.
“Rationing creates challenges,” Hansen said of his experience with the revenue-deficient Brown administration.
Hansen wrapped up soon enough, and Mousa took over to explain “what Susie and I have been doing regarding transition and budgeting.”
He mentioned that some people have flat out resigned. Including Hansen.
Then Mousa took aim at the current administration.
“I’ve taken … a focus on the organizational structure,” which has changed “four times in four years.”
“They say that change is good. I don’t think that much change is good.”
He then talked of his “budget task force” composed of “some of the best in the business.”
“We tend to be a bit more organized, a bit more detailed, a bit more intrusive than they were” in the budget process.
Mousa then addressed his meetings with department heads next week. Four days will be scheduled, and these will “give us a better opportunity to make recommendations to the mayor.”
One of those recommendations, one gathers, will not to be to chase Hansen down for advice.
“One thing Hansen did not note is that most of our bond funds are in negative cash,” Mousa said, a situation that affects the general fund adversely because it “plugs holes anywhere in the government where there is a hole.”
Mousa also took aim at what he saw as profligate use of the banking fund.
It’s “nothing more than a credit card,” he said. “My Visa card has a hell of a limit,” he added, but it’s hard to pay it down when it’s maxed out.
“Folks in general do not understand debt service,” Mousa said.
Another potential issue: Mousa’s belief, buoyed by Councilwoman Lori Boyer, that there is $50 million available in “different pots.”
One of the burning questions of the budgetary process was revealed during the just-concluded campaign, when Curry kept maintaining that there were massive issues with the budget that, if resolved, would turn the city’s financial picture around.
If that money is there, count on Sam Mousa to find it.
