A.G. Gancarski
This is a liveblog of the third of four Transition Budget Reviews on Monday, the first of four days of these (for the Inspector General’s office). For the JSO review and the JFRD review, please click the hyperlinks.
1:15 p.m.: Sam Mousa confirms that Mike Weinstein is part of the budget task force. That explains the email about a meeting that went out a couple of weeks ago.
1:20 p.m.: The budget presented is going to be for four employees. Fourteen more jurisdictions will be added, and more budget will be needed to encompass all independent authorities and constitutional officers effective Jan. 1, 2016.
1:22 p.m.: Enhancement will be for six more employees to be phased in from October to March in new fiscal year.
1:25 p.m.: The people in department are appointed, serving at the pleasure of the inspector general.
1:30 p.m.: Proposal to charge a “contract fee” of about 1 percent, similar to other jurisdictions, to pay for IG staff salary. Those would be operational funds, such as parking funds. “If you buy something from the city, there would be a fee added to it,” says Angela at the table. Weinstein: “Part of doing business with the city is the added cost.” This can be framed as a win for the business community, apparently.
1:33 p.m.: The Palm Beach model involves sliding-scale costs, based on how much or little contracting is done.
Inspector general staff has left. Now, Mousa says, the committee is going to “talk about a few things.”
1:34 p.m.: The office will be expanding gradually to “prove itself,” and there may be space in the Ed Ball Building. City hall cannot house the IG office because “whistleblowers” don’t want to feel “monitored or watched.”
1:40 p.m.: IG office will take care not to duplicate audits from other departments.
1:43 p.m.: “This is a daunting task” for this office, says the representative from the IG office, with the current staff. They currently share with Ethics; for accreditation purposes, though, they can’t share office space with any other office.
1:43 p.m.: Joe Stelma sent Mousa a budget request for vacant positions in other departments; it will be reviewed, apparently.
1:44 p.m.: “Let’s hook up at 2:45.”
