QUESTIONS TOO TOUGH? - Part I

The First TEN Questions NOT Being Asked

Here are the first 10 of the 20 questions we, as IRB citizens, HOPED our commissioners would ask at last Thursday’s night’s meeting…but didn’t:

Q. How can the City do a budget without ever seeing the “actuals” for the prior year to gauge how the City performed against previous projections?

Q. Why isn’t the budget published (by law) in the Sunday, September 13th St. Petersburg Times the same budget presented at the final reading last Thursday?

Q. Why doesn’t the money IRB has in the bank—money carried forward from the prior year--factor into the amount of the tax increase needed?

Q. Why has this commission never voted to approve the so-called loans in the first place--per Section 10.5 of the City Charter--when they’ve known of their existence since March of this year?

Q. Citizens were told that the reason for the loans in the first place was the County’s rate increase. How can that be if the first loan/transfer was made shortly after the County’s increase went into effect—long before the $1.1 million fund balance in the Sewer Fund from the prior year could be expended?

Q. How was this commission able to approve a loan repayment plan for loans our commission has NEVER authorized?

Q. When was it decided that the outstanding loans would DEFINITELY be repaid to the General Fund? (As far as most of us know, that issue was still on the table for discussion, since the commission discovered that there is NO LEGAL REQUIREMENT for repayment--as many citizens pointed out from the beginning.)

Q. If the loan is going to be repaid, it’s a receivable. A receivable, in turn, is an asset. So, why isn’t this receivable “asset” showing on the opposite side of the ledger on this year’s budget?

Q. Does not showing the debt as a receivable “set the stage” for it to be written off at some time in future, even though we are being asked to cough up the money to repay it?

Q. How many commissioners brought a calculator to the meeting?

Check back on IRBeHEARD tomorrow for the rest of the 20 questions that remain unanswered. Meanwhile blog in and ask your own questions...I'm sure you have a few!

Nancy Obarski
Beach Trail/IRB