The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 108, No. 39 - September 26, 2019
Inside
This Issue
Calendar of Events.............3
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.....................10
Classifieds..........................11
Community Briefs...............3
Crossword/Sudoku...........11
Legals......................... 9,10,11
Real Estate.......................5-8
School Spotlight..................4
Sports....................................4
Weekend
Forecast
Richmond Gets Stuck on Reading
Richmond Street School Principal Dr. Alice Lee motivates students to get “stuck on reading” by letting the children that participated in their summer reading challenge duct tape her to the wall! Lee is willing
to do whatever it takes to keep students reading. Image of: Principal Dr. Alice Lee, Reading Specialist Mrs. Lisa Haun, and some of the summer readers that participated. Photo: Richmond Street School
Latest Budget Divides the Council
By Brian Simon
The El Segundo City Council last week
adopted the 2019/20 fiscal budget. As has been
the case virtually every year he has served on
the dais, Councilmember Don Brann voted
no. Usually, he is the lone dissenter in the
group, but this year he had some company as
colleague Chris Pimentel also voted against
the final document. However, the reasons for
their disapproval were markedly different.
Brann’s primary issue was with the general
fund reserves policy. He believes that the City
of El Segundo “hoards money” that could
be spent on providing important services
(e.g. infrastructure fixes) and paying down
pension liability.
This year, the Council agreed to reduce
the reserves from 19 percent to 17 percent.
Brann hoped to get that number down to 15.
He had an ally in Mayor Drew Boyles, who
asked to cut reserves to 15 percent in order to
direct over $3 million into the City’s pension
trust. Ultimately, Boyles voted in favor of the
budget. “Although the request to consider a
15 percent reserve policy and put even more
towards pension liabilities came from me,
Finance Director Joe Lillio made a compelling
argument for reevaluating mid-year,” Boyles
explained. “This is sound counsel financially
and with our decision last Tuesday night, we
will have saved our great city over $11 million
in pension interest expenses.”
The rest of the Council (other than Brann)
agreed with Lillio’s recommendation to keep
reserves at 17 percent, but that was not enough
to persuade Pimentel to support the latest
budget. “The budget reflects excellent work
by the staff and I appreciate the transparency,
comprehensiveness and explanations…but it
has three glaring issues,” Pimentel said. “It
counts vacant positions as revenue—a very
dangerous fiscal practice that will inevitably
haunt us in leaner times. Secondly, it allocates
funds to programs in 2019/20 that
cannot be spent on projects until the future.
Large improvement projects, such as The
Plunge or Teen Center, move forward in
distinct phases. Allocating additional funds to
them for this fiscal year does not inherently
make the work go faster. As a metaphor, it
tries to buy appliances before the house has
blueprints. And lastly, it breaks faith with the
neighbors of Acacia Park on maintaining the
level of service that they received before our
city maintenance on the wastewater pumps
below them.”
The rest of the Council was in favor of
scrapping the proposed pool at Acacia Park,
pointing to its longstanding underutilization
as well as summer-only hours and lack of
parking, among other points. They felt it better
to direct the freed-up $1 million towards
the long-discussed renovation of The Plunge.
The policy to build in a 5 percent unfilled
vacancy rate into the budget is new. “The
City has historically prepared and adopted
its annual budget with the assumption that
100 percent of budgeted positions will be
filled during the course of the fiscal year,”
City Manager Scott Mitnick said. “This is
an industry Best Management Practice. As a
percent of total general fund, personnel costs
have historically been about 80 percent of
the total general fund appropriations. With
the new 5 percent vacancy budget reduction
approach, total personnel costs are estimated
to be about 77 percent of total general fund
appropriations for FY 2019-20.”
Over the past three years, the City has
averaged about 30-35 vacant full-time positions,
with much of the reason for this tied
into the increasing retirement rates among
employees. Another contributing factor has
been the transition in Human Resources (HR)
directory and HR staff positions. “The current
HR staff have been diligently working
to recruit and fill positions as they become
vacant,” Mitnick said. “Going forward, staff
anticipates this number remaining about the
same in FY 2019-20 and then reducing in
subsequent years.”
Mitnick expects the trend of 30-35 full-time
vacant positions to continue in the new fiscal
year and then begin to decrease subsequently.
The 5 percent rate assumes approximately 14
vacant full-time positions. “It is unlikely that
the City will exceed the three-year historical
figure,” Mitnick said.
For Brann, this was a move in the right
direction but still not enough. “At worst, the
reserves will total 25 percent,” he said. “You
have 17 percent from the general fund, 2 percent
from the economic uncertainty fund and still
another 6 percent or more from the remaining
unfilled vacancies. The City should not be a
bank that holds onto money when we can use
it to provide vital services for our residents
that have been deferred for way too long.”
Asked if the vacancy positions count as
revenue as Pimentel suggested, Mitnick
responded, “Technically no. The 5 percent
vacancy rate is a de facto reduction in the
budget appropriation.” He added that the City
will continue to work diligently to fill vacant
positions through the coming fiscal year. “It
is not anticipated that there will be a need
to pursue using additional salary savings
to balance the budget,” Mitnick noted. “If
there is a natural disaster, economic recession,
unexpected drop in revenues, and/or
unexpected rise in expenditures, City staff
will explore methods to balance the budget.
Relying on salary savings should be viewed
as a temporary measure to balance the budget
and not a recurring mechanism. This is not
a Best Management Practice.” •
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