Our Budget

The prevailing balance of interests and pressures in the City’s determination of public expenditure management is unlikely to reflect a social equity, pro-employee, ethics driven, orientation in any simple sense. It is also likely to reflect complicated information sharing processes, generally held in private rather than public discussions, and designed to exclude groups from the decision-making. It is very likely that any attempts to eliminate walking quorums and other forms of illegal meetings will run into both overt and covert resistance. The adoption of formal budget policy goals by the City will lack commitment and have an insufficient support to achieve meaningful results.
Ideally, therefore, for people interested in understanding the politics of a given budget process it would be valuable to have information about the following: a) The formal structure of roles and responsibilities within the budget process; b) The formal rules governing decision-making, political choice and accountability within the public expenditure management system; c) The networks of stakeholder power and influence (outside the formal allocation of roles and responsibilities), which influence the outcomes of the budget process; d) Incentives for action (covert as well as overt) affecting the decision-making of politicians and officials during budget formulation and execution; e) The latitude for independent discretionary action of bureaucrats at all levels of the budget execution process; f) The norms and values prevailing in key institutions within the budget formulation and execution process.

How Are You Involved?

The Rice Lake City Council has taken a step that I find interesting and I’m going to follow the process for a while. The new resolution requires an agenda item called “Conflict of Interest disclosure and protocol” or something similar. They added this after a problem with a contracted engineer not disclosing a conflict.
The resolution requires staff, contractors and developers to provide information on any conflicts or potential conflicts of interest that may occur during any agenda item at the meeting and the procedure they will use to resolve the conflict. I assume that the Council’s ethics code would provide direction on clear conflicts of interest, but potential conflicts raise another question. Will requiring the discussion at the beginning of the meeting raise the level of attention to ethics problems and encourage the participants to take the high road and recuse themselves from participating in the decision-making process?
The first item I would add to this process is to include the Council members, committee members and board members. Rarely do these participants think about their conflicts before the meeting and as the meeting discussions develop, they are less likely to remove themselves even when they finally realize they may have a potential conflict.
This has the potential to establish a culture of ethics at the top of the organization. Frank conversations about what may create a conflict and the resulting actions may generate an organization that minimizes ethical lapses.

Solar Powered

The Wisconsin Public Service rate order requires purchasing the output of photovoltaic generation within the community. The attached PSC rate file provides the conditions and rates under which Lake Mills Light and Water will purchase electricity from small photovoltaic producers.
Lake Mills Light and Water (LML&W), a member of WPPI Energy, wants to offer a special energy purchase rate to its customers that generate electricity using solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. The special rate, $0.30/kilowatt-hour (kWh), is available to all the LML&W customers on a first-come, first-served basis for systems up to 4 kilowatts (kW) up to an overall program cap of 10 kW DC. The LML&W program is part of a larger solar buyback program being offered by WPPI to its member utilities, which has a total program limit of 300 kW. The 10 kW program cap may be increased to up to 30 kW if sufficient capacity is available under the parent WPPI Energy program.
It is important to note that this is not a net metering arrangement. Instead, the customer continues to pay their normal retail rate for electricity that they purchase from the utility. All of the energy generated by the customer's PV system is metered separately and exported directly to the grid. The $0.30/kWh incentive is applied to all of the energy the system produces for a period of 10 years, under a written contract with the LML&W. The customer receives payment as a monthly credit on their electricity bill. LML&W then resells the energy to WPPI Energy.
This arrangement requires the installation of a second generation meter at the customer's expense. Participants are also charged an additional metering fee of $1.00/month. Systems and components are required to comply with all applicable national, state, and local electric codes, rules, and regulations, including the State of Wisconsin's Standard Interconnection Rules. WPPI Energy takes title to all renewable energy credits (RECs) or other environmental attributes produced by systems enrolled in the program.

On The Verge

"Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better."
- King Whitney Jr

If the budget passes with the reorganization, we are going to need well defined profiles of each position. These position profiles consist of documented routines, responsibilities, and levels of authority. These position profiles should be developed and distributed accordingly. Work assignments can be restructured and reallocated with documented clarity and explanation. As roles change, the individuals with new responsibilities will have documented instructions to follow, accompanied with guidelines, schedules, metrics, and reports of previous performance. It makes the transfer of responsibilities easier to manage and quicker to come up to speed.

Position Profiles are very different from job descriptions. A job description is typically a bulleted list of activities that may be performed by a particular job title, and the list of desired qualifications. This comes in handy when posting a position for hire, but is entirely inadequate as a position profile. A position profile should describe in detail the daily, weekly, or monthly routines performed by a person in a position. The position profile should include the metrics to measure performance, so there is an understanding as to determining the effectiveness of the job performed. The position profile should include a clearly defined level of authority for making decisions relevant to the completion of job related activities. For example, does this position have the authority to make a final decision, recommend, or influence a decision that has economic impact? It is good to have these things defined, especially when someone new inherits
the responsibilities.

Today's Quote

“I don't think Enron is that unusual. After all, we have a chief executive class which act like dictators of small Latin American countries.”

Sherron Watkins

Ethics Treatment

There's a book out called the Lucifer Effect that I notice when reading CityEthics.org. The jist of the blog was that the book talked about treating ethics as disease prevention rather then disease treatment.
Another words, just treating the individual's problem fails to cleanup the organization. The culture of the organization provides the opportunities for choosing "to" or "not to" act ethically.
So, when the Council President removes himself from an issue with a possible conflict that has been ignored for years - it has the potential to send a message to other members that there is a cultural expectation. I know the cynic will say that it was done to avoid a hard decision, but I like to believe that there was a higher motive.

Business With City

Does a personal relationship interfere with your objectivity in performing your duties because you interact, directly or indirectly, with this individual on behalf of the city? You should make sure other decision-makers are aware of this relationship and be fully prepared to outline your decision-making process.

Today's Quotes

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Because;

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often. - Erich Fromm

What Are they Thinking

Probably different than me.

Praise

Maintaining a positive attitude during the most significant economic downturn in my lifetime and the related political changes that we are experiencing in government must certainly be considered a challenge. I have never been a rah-rah kind of guy. I have always expected that people around me will perform their parts as expected and it should not require any encouragement. I don’t mind being praised – I just don’t expect it and I treat others the same. It’s too bad really, because I do have a great appreciation for what my team is able to accomplish and willing to try.
The quote, "By sticking it out through tough times, people emerge from adversity with a stronger sense of efficacy" by Albert Bandura is consistent with what I think we have been able to structure for the next budget with a desire to make it work. I am sure we will have some failures, but given some grace, I think we will be able to make some substantial changes for the better.
May be I’ll be able to get over my feelings of “this is where we should have been to begin with” and dish out some highly deserved praise.

Incivility

The goal is to remain civil when those around you have no regard for others. The key is to be able to respond with accurate or objective information without resorting to yelling or attacking a personality. Sometimes the majority of your own information is subjective and you have to be firm in your position based on what you believe is right without resorting to personal attacks.
A well run meeting can help keep incivility in check, but again this takes strong leadership and a framework of competency.

Complexity

“The capacity of the human mind for formulating and solving complex problems is very small compared to the size of the problems whose solution is required for objectively rational behavior in the real world.”
Herbert Simon

Competent

A competency framework defines the knowledge, skills, and attributes needed for people within an organization. Each individual role will have its own set of competencies needed to perform the job effectively. To develop this framework, you need to have an in-depth understanding of the roles within your organization. Within the elected structure of government – what one group views as a competency framework is viewed as goal blocking by another group.
The qualities like honesty, reliability, love and sincerity, these values--deep-seated beliefs that lead to judgments about right and wrong--but they have to do with individuals and how we lead our lives individually.
Learning how political values influence public policy development as opposed to the lives of the individuals who make policy is a skill not easily learned or taught. The primary political value in our culture is responsiveness of governmental officials to public wants and needs. The value of responsiveness is reflected in demands for representation, efficiency, individual rights, and social equity.
We no longer desire to consider the discussion of politics as choices among conflicting values without demeaning the individual. There is no desire to compare or give credence to the difference between political and administrative values and perspectives. There is only might makes right.
There is no longer any desire to become competent at the full range of political skills.

Next Question

The challenges of self-government are often greater in small communities because they must deal with the ever-more-complex laws and regulations of the 21st century without the specialized staff of larger cities. In small cities, the clerk covers multiple job scopes, the manager has to make decisions with limited information, and the public works director is probably a “one-man show.”
It may appear that small communities have fewer and smaller problems, but the fact of the matter is that they only have fewer and smaller resources to deal with those problems. Compared to bigger communities, they typically have smaller staffs, less revenue, and less available expertise, particularly in areas such as finance and planning. Although people want to paint rosy images, small communities face the same problems and deal with the same issues as the biggest cities. Regardless of a community’s size it must, at a basic level, provide the services and facilities necessary to promote the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens and it must develop adequate revenue sources to pay for those services and facilities.
It’s easy to think of a city as a stand-alone entity. They have their own borders and unique laws and ordinances. But cities operate within a larger government framework. They were created under the state constitution and general laws as “municipal corporations.” In essence, cities are creatures of the state, exercising local powers only within the limitation of state law.
Running a city has become much more complex in the past 25 years. State and federal mandates, complicated human resource issues, liability and risk management, growth management laws, complex contracts and agreements, difficult budgets, and many other tough issues face cities today. It is increasingly difficult for a small city manager and city clerk to deal effectively with all these issues.
Now we are being driven to answer performance questions as much as budget questions. It means that we, in fact, need to figure out metrics for performance efficiency and effectiveness. Businesses that succeed and make money constantly assess themselves and improve in all dimensions of their business; metrics are the cornerstone of their assessment, and the foundation for any business improvement.
For us the selection of metrics is secondary to gathering data, if you can’t track your progress; how are you going to determine how you’re doing. Small communities have historically failed to value gathering data and most positions are filled with tasks that don’t include gathering the data. As we eliminate positions – how do we start including the time to gather data?

Ready

I have passed a Hunter Safety course and will be completing the necessary paperwork to carry. I will not be waiting to be shot. I think a 9mm should do the job. Jim always wanted to carry at Council meetings – now is his chance.