City of Fillmore

The year is 2011. Across the United States counties, cities, and neighborhoods are working with constricting budgets and some residents are worried. Major issues moving forward this year for Fillmore are: more budget reductions and how they affect services, the working environment in City Hall and the publics perception of how it’s city government conducts business all the while keeping the future of the City in mind.

What is the State of the City’s Finances? Council member Steve Conaway comments, “The State has removed over $2.5 million from Fillmore… and we haven’t seen the end of the state take-aways.” According to City Manager Yvonne Quiring her focus going into next year will be “the Budget… and how do we make this work given the resources that we have… subject to [what the Council decides].” Quiring explains that the City has been “burning through… and living off of the savings account…[current projections show] no money being available next year.” Realistically she continues, there will be some nominal amount available, but “reserves [are] not enough to cover expenditures… [The City is] not getting enough money in the checking account to write checks.” Washburn reports “We have been told we [are likely to] have a $2 million shortfall, we have redevelopment money to payback, we are not getting [our] sales tax revenue [as] that issue has not yet been resolved, the county assessor is looking at another decrease in property tax assessments, so we’ll be getting less property tax.” She explains that the recent development and growth in the City has occurred “based on assumptions… that there was no bubble. We took out a lot of debt based on ever increasing revenues.” According to Washburn the City has several bonds with “increasing debt service levels, which is not good in a declining revenue situation. The assumptions were way to… optimistic.” Washburn suggests that city government and the services provided “may look different” as a result of the financial hurdles that need to be dealt with. Some areas where she thinks residents can expect to see a difference are with street repairs, landscape and lighting, pool hours, and tax increases. While generally opposed to new taxes, Washburn states, “we may be required to implement a new storm water treatment tax.”

Regarding budgeting issues Conaway states “As a city…we’ve lost sight of our city finances since 2008 due to revised budget formats and reallocation of funds and are only now starting to gain stability in our budgeting process.” He feels that continued focus on this, “defending [the City’s] economic interests in the courts… will provide a boost to our local economy.”

According to the Budget Message presented with the proposed budget to the City Council by Quiring “[The] General Fund is balanced. There was a $1 million shortfall in the General Fund.” The Message goes on to explain that in order to cover the deficit, monies from the reserve fund have been used, all departments have received cuts, and while the Council has directed her to “avoid cutting positions”, Quiring anticipates that “if enough savings or revenue cannot be generated, positions will need to be cut.” Just a few of the items being examined for possible sources of additional savings or ways to generate revenue are “putting all eligible employees on the same schedule” to save on utilities, eliminating unfilled non-necessary positions, revisiting the City’s contribution toward the SRO (school resource officer), increasing certain fees and charges (water and sewage rates, recreation fees etc.), new sewer dump station, implement policies to better collect unpaid citations and utility bills etc. Washburn has indicated that committees have been formed to examine ways to increase revenue of the pool and theatre. Every department has been examined for possible savings. Quiring has asked the Council for direction so that “we may shape services to align with the available funding.” Washburn plans to propose creating a community Budget Task Force to inform the Council on services that “they can live without.” Conaway suggests “For Fillmore’s long term health we need to marshal the Business Park along and work with the developers who want to build the park as partners.” He states “We have many opportunities available to us as a city… Chevron is beginning to seek reviews on the Brownfield property…[the City] should be looking in this area and working with [Chevron] to develop a vision [for that area].”

Gas Tax, Shopping Local and the State of our Streets: Responding to the question of how Fillmore Public Works is affected by the ongoing budget reductions, Fillmore’s recently resigned Director of Public Works Bert Rapp stated, “It really takes away the money that we’d like to spend to take care of things. In particular the parks and landscaping, that’s the first thing to get cut.” According to Rapp “The worst problem we have is [that] the state gas tax is insufficient to maintain our streets. The tax hasn’t been changed for 20 years… over that [time] cars [have become] more fuel-efficient… [Combined with] inflation in the price of oil and asphalt. In 20 years [the price of asphalt] has gone from $30 a ton to $110 a ton, and yet the gas tax has stayed at 18 cents a gallon.” He went on to explain “[It’s much more] cost effective [to] repave the streets before they deteriorate… if you [wait and] cut out a damaged part of asphalt it’s about $5.00 a square foot, but if you repave before it’s damaged it’s about $1.00 a square foot.” Rapp also emphasized the importance of property values for a city like Fillmore. “[Cities like] Ventura, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, their property values are in some cases double what Fillmore’s home values are, so that means they get twice as much property tax revenue per capita per street mile. They have sales tax, which is often three times per capita as the City of Fillmore. We don’t have Sam’s Club, Lowe’s …everyone from Fillmore goes [elsewhere] to shop and those cities get the sales tax and use that to pave their streets.” Those cities use their property tax revenue to do their high priority street upkeep, while saving their gas tax revenue for paving streets. Fillmore doesn’t have that option so the City “rarely has any money left over for paving streets.” In addition, Rapp goes on, the federal gas tax has also remained at 18 cents a gallon for 20 years and according to Rapp “only 20% of streets in Fillmore are Federally eligible” for being repaired with the federal gas tax revenue. He understands and shares the frustration expressed by some residents when they see certain streets being paved while others in worse condition are left alone. These restrictions come from “The elites in Washington D.C. who know better than us what street we aught to pave with our gas tax money”. Rapp stated that the streets are a big issue and will continue to be until the voters approve a gas tax change. Rapp recognized the City budget as “extremely tight” and shared the suggestion “of always planning with the long term in mind” as the City moves forward in this tough economy.

What is the state of the working environment at City Hall? Responding to questions regarding the work environment and employee-management relations, along with reports of employees feeling pressure to resign and the recent letters of no confidence in Quiring, Washburn continues to defend Quiring stating “no employee has ever been treated disrespectfully in my presence… that I know of…Ultimately there were only five grievances submitted and we also know that the majority of employees who signed the first letter did not have any personal contact with the City Manager.” Washburn explained that when the first letter was received, she contacted California Joint Powers Insurance Authority (JPIA). According to JPIA’s website it is one of the “largest municipal self insurance pools in the state” and provides liability assistance to it’s members. Washburn reports that the JPIA employee she spoke with told her that issuing letters of no confidence is a commonly used tactic of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) during labor negotiations. SEIU is the union that represents Fillmore’s employees. Washburn clarified “I’m not saying this is what happened… but it has happened [elsewhere].” Washburn also cited the fact that labor negotiations were underway with represented and non-represented employees as well as campaigns for seats on the City Council. She continued that before the letters of no confidence were issued, it had become clear that cuts would need to be made. At that time Quiring took the issue to City staff asking them to advise the Council on where cuts should be made. Washburn explained, “Some of the [suggested cuts to services] the Council wasn’t willing to do…at the level that the employees wanted. I think that put…fear [in the] employees because they were being asked to make concessions.” While Washburn understands the “panic” that employees may be feeling she thinks the letters of no confidence were “out of line”. She does emphasize that the Council wanted to be fair, and “balanced” in its investigation. They hired an outside attorney at a cost of $15,000 to look into the claims, and according to the Council’s statement dated January 18, 2011 the attorney found that “there are no facts, nor allegations of conduct by the City Manager that constitute unlawful conduct.”

Washburn acknowledges a possible disconnect between management and employees, and that there may have been “[past] personality conflicts” resulting in employees choosing to resign. She also cites the possibility of opinions printed in Gazette editorials being perceived as fact and that “ the Gazette…has to accept a large part of responsibility for that…[certain stated opinions] have probably created a level of fearfulness that is not warranted. The truth is, the Council, nor I, have never threatened nor been disrespectful to any staff members.” When asked about employee requests for contracts which were not awarded Washburn responded, “I am not aware of other cities in Ventura County that grant employment contracts to anyone other than the City Manager.” It is the case in Fillmore that the Council does not have direct authority over the hiring and firing of employees other than the City Manager and City Attorney. Washburn continued “I suppose the Council could have that authority over other employees but it wouldn’t be prudent to just select certain employees for contracts. I don’t think the City has ever had employment contracts for any position other than City Manager. Employees are expected to fulfill their job description duties and perform at a high level without a contract. A contract would be redundant and unnecessary. The City has always tried to treat all employees fairly. They receive excellent pay and generous benefits. I don’t see any advantage to the taxpayers or employees in handing out unnecessary contracts.” When asked to comment on the letters of no confidence and the process of investigating the claims Conaway responded, “the public is aware of the morale issues inside City Hall. I don’t need to highlight those issues any further.” On other work environment related issues Conaway explained “We have a void of experience in key positions inside City Hall. We’ve failed to retain key individuals who have been long term employees of the City…That institutional knowledge [will] need to be built over time.”

Filling vacant positions. Washburn reports that the Council previously approved and included in the budget the position of Deputy City Manager. According to Washburn “We are in need of a deputy city manger, there are a lot of projects that haven’t been able to move forward because we don’t have enough staff.” Quiring indicated that the permanent filling of the Deputy City Manager position “is on hold” and is currently “filled part time by a temporary employee.” She also reported that the City has a new Finance Director, Glenda Jay. According to Quiring “[Jay] has 30 years of municipal finance experience. A Bachelors degree in administration from Cal State, San Bernardino and a Masters in public administration from Cal State, Northridge…[she] is the former finance director of Santa Paula.” Quiring plans to fill the Director of Public Works position on a temporary basis during “recruitment for a permanent position.”

What’s good in the City right now? Rapp commented on the great work being done by the volunteers with the Civic Pride group, and he expects them to be making recommendations soon to the Council regarding beautification ideas for downtown. Washburn commented “we have a lot of good people [in Fillmore]… the Chamber [of Commerce] is doing an excellent job.” Quiring shared the view that people are an asset in the City of Fillmore particularly naming those involved in Public Safety (fire and police) “we are truly fortunate to have people who are community minded.” Quiring also stated that sometimes with great challenges come “Great ideas… opportunities are created.” When asked about good things happening in the City and looking forward Conaway stated “We have achieved some long term goals [New Waste Water Treatment Plant, New Tennis and Pool Facility, Two Rivers Park, storm drain on Central Avenue]…we were able to achieve these things because we had stability in our work force, we have vision and we have people willing to get things done… we need the same level of commitment going forward.” He shares Quirings and Washburn’s sentiments when he states “[Our achievements] are made possible by the citizens of Fillmore, which [are] our best asset.”