and just a normal reminder to please silence your cell phone than other noisemaking devices with your please proceed mr chair proceeding with the presentation of testimony on agenda items we've established limited telephone interactive communication that enables individuals from honda to provide testimony from our district offices individuals who wish to offer testimony from honolulu should now set up a district office staff individuals who wish to offer testimony in the chamber please sign up at the desk located in the eighth floor lobby just outside the chamber door testimony at all locations is limited to the items listed on today's agenda pursuant to the rules of the council each testifier may be allowed to testify for up to three minutes when testifying please state your name in the name of any buy thank you mr chair we have four individuals who signed up to testify in the council chamber the first person to testify in the chamber is christopher fish can he will be followed by eric olson good morning good morning good morning council members my name's christopher fishkin i'm here this morning to testify regarding mayor is line item veto of the council's attempts to restrict the administration from transferring funds from one program to another without a council resolution adopted by ordinance in the public view council member comma you have raise issues of trust and have spoken of the need for transparency in our county government council member y your public statements have given the citizens of further reason for mistrust of county officials council the council is knowledge of expenditures by county public officials that were not approved by the council and i quote council member white quote even denied by the council upwards of two million dollars in accordance with the county charter the budget process is a public process the citizens have the right to know which department in which individuals are responsible for these unauthorized expenditures i believe it is fair to ask the council to disclose this information today further to citizens of maui county would like to know it what pointed pad won and corporation council become aware of these violations and have the advisory council to enforce sections nine twelve and section thirteen ten of the mallee county charter very often too many times and for too many years the burden of holding this county's public officials responsible for their misdeeds have been unfairly placed upon the citizens of maui county well we applaud the council's efforts to help secure accountability through this piece of legislation as are interested elected officials we feel you are also obligated to extend your power and authority to enforce the charter disclose the perpetrators and adopt the appropriate punishment for the violations you have discovered clearly another rule in and of itself is not going to prevent further violations without proper in foresman and penalty director good is concerned about penalties that could result from necessary emergency expenditures well apparently unconcerned about the penalties for his departments own already unlawful expenditures i am presuming that pat long and corporation council also clearly supports the mayor's vet director goods public statements both of which draw a legal conclusions and so should they even be here at the council with the council at this hearing this is a perfect example of why the council must have its own legal council citizens of maui county requests that you please disclose to the public at this meeting today the public officials that you have discovered to be in violation of the maui county charter and please inform us as to whether corporation council has advised both director good and the mayor to veto the council provision requiring an adopted ordinance by council to transfer funds from one program and account to another how long is pad long and corporation council going to continue to preclude transparency of county officials and the next person to testify is eric holsten he'll be followed by  good morning good morning council members my name is eric olson lived on west maui for twenty two years i am currently enjoying a three day father's day weekend to testify regarding marriage call as recently i don't veto this capsule attempt to restrict the administration from moving public funds from one program to another without first getting our permission my six year old son played his first season of little league this year after a few games i began to wonder why on earth the facilities were in such very poor condition be the more i began to dig the stranger things got primarily the lack of information that is readily available to a concerned citizen of west maui i was hoping to find out how much money is in the fund where the money is being spent and the way the fund gets replenished at this point i've come to understand that all new subdivisions must pay a park fee in the tens of thousands of dollars or donate parkland for public use i can assure you when i drive home today from this meeting i will go through a tunnel and pass all of th first park i will see on my way home is in south la in a very near my home this begs the question if there aren't parks where's the money i have tried for over a month to obtain this information from the administration specifically what are the current park fees for a developed lot do all subdivisions and all new permanent homes pay their fair share or is there excess exemptions for the developers to manipulate as any money from the park fund been shifted to an authorized expenditures if so how much who can i contact on this council to obtain this information because surely is not being made available in that department i will also hope that whomever you direct me to will not be influenced by an office that seems to have the midas touch every time they go to vegas i would have a very hard time trusting someone who claims they have won over a million dollars in the last thirty months and still goes to work for our county i believe that more light should be brought to mr wants financial affairs exactly like the budget violations that have happened and are probably being planned to continue something just does not add up thank you thank you your testimony members any need for clarification see none thank you for being here and to your question of who you can contact you can contact mr cochran's office or you can contact my office for that information thank you very much restrict the administration from transferring funds from one program to another four or five years ago four or five years ago i was trying to submit my proposal to subcontract the immigrant services of the county of maui the budget at that time was over two hundred thousand dollars and i was proposing a budget of ninety to one hundred thousand to cut down the the budget at that time i met with the director to discuss my proposal at that time and nobody returned nobody called me back and as someone who works or handles immigration cases for the last thirty years i know what it takes to help those in need for that service rent at that time that they were paying was seventy thousand dollars a month for that little space for immigrant services during my search for the immigrants during my search for the budget i know it is a lot of questionable expenses i didn't know who to go and ask i was asking for more details of the budget for the immigrant services and i was sent through channels i have to do these i have to do that before i can get you know i get those informations three hundred thousand budget is not only used by immigrant services i know it is on one of my search and it was used by another department and i said to myself how is that so that's why i am testifying think you thank you members any need for clarification i see no thank you for being here this morning mr good experts in to testify as rosemary robins mr robbins as the last individual who signed up to testify in the council chamber about an issue this morning that's reflecting program planning and budgeting if there isn't a plan how can he be here realistic budget plans need to have oversight somebody who worked  the water situation with federal money coming in here for oversight realize that the federal money given to the county how it got expended was not clear to the people on the oversight committee because when we would ask her information it wasn't available when we talk about the plan we also need to talk about the budgeting and take a look at the debt that we're in right now both of those are aspects functioning corporations otherwise entities that when they fall apart if they don't have the do planning last week also here we had an item on the agenda that said that there was a failure written data from how the shore was used i think it was in  running businesses down there on the shoreline and where they come in and this item out that under that item when i looked it up there was insufficient data collections on paper we're saying over the weekend that  it's international hackers reportedly that are causing problems with records disappearing folks we need to be able to have clear planning done it needs to be comprehensive it needs to be under conditions of oversight where things aren't going to get lost and we can't make those plans if we kind of be realistic about the money and otherwise assets resources that have to be put to it to have that under just one section of our multisection and democratic process in this republic of the u s something's terribly wrong with that so let's make sure that the you know be you know is overridden at least at this point in time let's clean up the act in terms of comprehensive planning and realistic budgeting with loads of room for improvement let's improve thank you thank you members of the need for clarification see none thank you for being here this morning well mr clerk mr chair there are no further individual signed up to testify in the council chamber there are any additional individuals in the council chamber at the district offices who would like to offer testimony please identify yourself to the proper it staff and proceed to the testimony lectern or district office phone at this time upon office are there any thank you the night you office are there any additional testif testimony mr chair we have received written testimony members without objection will enter the testimony for the record ok thank you and without objection we will close public testimony thank you proceed mr chair proceeding with kind of communications you have before you kind of communication fifteen dash one eight seven from the mare transmitting to the county clerk bill number thirty eight two thousand and fifteen draft one entitled a bill for an ordinance relating to the operating budget for the county of maui for the fiscal year july first two thousand and fifteen to june thirtieth two thousand and sixteen and notifying of his veto of items or portions there of the councils in receipt of a letter from the mare dated june twelfth two thousand and fifteen thousand and sixteen budget relating to the fiscal year two thousand and sixteen annual budget on second and final reading on friday june fifth two thousand and fifteen in adopting the county's annual budget their idea is that pursuant to section four dash three subsection two of the revise charter of the county of maui one thousand nine hundred three as amended i object to the following provides a statement of the items or portions there of to which i object and the reason is there for one as it pertains to section seven job of budget provisions appendix a part two special purpose revenues schedule of revolving special funds an appendix c object to the restriction imposed by the language added to section seven of the general budget provisions and specifically the binding policy statement to restrict disbursements from each program by category of use provided that the dispersement is within the program and category of use for which was appropriated as set forth in appendix c attached to an approach made apart here of and further provided that any transfer from one program to another or one category of use to another shall be authorized by council resolution and any transfer from one department to another shall be authorized by ordinance this is and to and to and to created in official policy which if my memory serves me right the council under  abandon two decades ago when then mer linda lingle decided to move the program based budgeting the provisions as outlined in the section create unnecessary paperwork an extremely cumbersome process that could even impact public safety in the event of an emergency the type of congestion these restrictions would create in the day to day operations of each county department is exactly the reason that the county moved away from this obsolete practice twenty years ago furthermore this outdated method is not considered the best practices approach to budgeting by the government finance officers association we already utilize modernized software that allows council members of data reporting on how each department's funding is being spent for these reasons and because i believe in moving our country forward not backward i vetoing this portion of the fiscal year two thousand and sixteen budget other items that have concerns with but will not object to with a veto or the lack of support that this council is provided to the long term improvement programs that were developed in department of parks and recreation and water supply th developed detailed plans to address the community concerns and needs but without the financial personnel support from council these improvements will not be appropriately implemented and will likely result in increased complaints by deferring and delaying these programs long term challenges are exponentially increased and economic benefits will not be realized in the water plan we presented as part of the f y two thousand and fifteen budget was part of a long term strategic plan to balance infrastructure needs against rates and fees the combination taken by the council to reduce the fees and add millions of dollars in an unspecified plan is not consistent with any long term strategy that we know of it may further exasperate the water challenges in various communities in addition by not adequately addressing equipment replacements such as vehicles in th year's budget the needs continue to exist and will have to be addressed in the future at an escalated cost by only putting in half of the required funding for the kiva replacement we are delaying replacement of a system that is no longer supported and is depended on by not only many county and under section named as seven subsection one of our charter any condition limitation or restriction to be controlled by the council with respect to the disbursement of any discipline and increase accountability to the fiscal year two thousand and sixteen budget mr chairman the general budget provisions contained in the budget bill provide binding policy statements and principles implement the budget a section seven of the general budget provisions to restrict disbursements for each program by category of use with allocation specified for the salaries premium pay or reallocation pay as  category b operations or service is as the b category or and c equipment or the c category the items are portions they were stricken by the  hundred ten of the charter already requires that and an incumbent appropriation balance be transferred within a department resolution and may be transferred from one department to another by ordinance effective july first two thousand and fifteen section seven as revised also requires a transfers between categories of use be authorized by  proverbial fire by requiring spending be consistent with the purpose of the appropriation and again mr chairman in common man's language that  who have heightened the need of public scrutiny and legislative oversight a b c restrictions are one means or increasing the accountability that appears to be needed since the departments are routinely exercise flexibility with their budget despite the purpose for which the appropriation was made i'm fully aware that some adjustments may be needed i appreciate the willingness and the cooperation of budget director bo in working with your committee chair and staff to implement a more accountable and transparent budget excuse me therefore to expedite considerations of amendments to the fiscal year two thousand and sixteen budget i have a  and finance committee and i don't which will allow for the direct referral of such requests from the administration and i have also committed to scheduling such requests on a very efficient and timely basis as needed in addition members i'm committed to a review of the a b c restrictions six months into the fiscal year two thousand and sixteen to further evaluate the effectiveness and the ministrations complaints with this restrictions american tends to work involving complying with this restrictions could impact public safety in the event of an emergency to the contrary mr chairman said charter sections for dish to subsection six as well as subsection two specifically provides for the council to authorize emergency appropriations when needed and specifically chairman chardy has its in language within conduct emergency meetings with posting and we can also conduct it through telephone communications for immediate decision making that impacts this county and or emergency situations so we have already have our forefathers and foremothers of the county take into account emergency situations for decades by the charter in his viewpoint published in the moment use on june seventeenth the member states it would be simply impossible to follow the county policy to promote economy efficiency and improve service in the transaction of the public business if these restrictions on dispersants of appropriation remain in the budget american states these restrictions are redundant there was already a hearing to a policy of spending appropriations made for operations only on appropriations appropriations made for salaries only on salaries and appropriations made for equipment only on equipment then perhaps the mayor as a point this is not what has been happening the restrictions were imposed because of a lack of accountability or confidence that appropriations would be spent for the uses represented by the mayor or his just that the council is not trying to manage the budget mr chairman rather the council is exercising its and and even and indeed it's duty to our people to set the budget in a responsible and transparent manner you know three things that people have come to talk to me about mr chairman we've talked about two of them which is transparency and accountability  residents of this county also have a concern and demand is performance ability to perform in the public's and communities best interests therefore for these reasons mr chairman i would ask you and our my fellow members just to fully support the motion to override in its entirety the mayor's feet will thank you thank you mr okama members and the other comments discussion this doesn't you know the transfer between programs is already against the charter and against the budget what this particular item we're talking about here is within a program transferring between categories and as we know a budget is a plan and none of us are perfect in our planning and sometimes we may not plan for enough emergencies or we may not plan for a vehicle that breaks down and that we can't replace so to be able to move things between a b and c categories within the same program it is already illegal to move between programs and believe you me if we ever found any of that i'm sure this whole council was would wholeheartedly and one hundred percent go after that if there is something between programs that shifted between programs that was not supposed we did didn't come through here i don't think there's a an issue there but and you know then that brings up the whole improprieties thing the things that at least from what i hear on the news because we haven't gotten any information yet through this body is that equipment was bought with equipment account so this a b c restrictions would have no effect on what's going on on that one issue as far as emergencies yes we do have emergency  capability however you know how with the sunshine law and everything in even if we get everything set up framework it's going to be six or seven days at minimum before we do any we can act on any of these emergencies even if we call in an immediate meeting we still have to do some with sort of posting we still have to do committee and then council so it's going to be it would be very tight my thought on an emergency and we had mr good come up and talk to us to say friday night we get a flood warning for over the weekend and specially maybe a three day weekend which we've had and it happens quite a bit usually in the winter but sometimes towards the end of the fiscal year he if mr good feels like he's in trouble with his budget he's getting close to over time is he able to exceed his overtime pay friday night everybody help clean up to go to his and do whatever it is to prepare for a big storm i don't know that that's something that way maybe we can come you know if this passes that something we can come up with to allow him to do something like that or the police or whomever you know it's one of those situations where it's hard to say you can't plan for emergencies the other question is again within this program we're restrictive we're going to change to restrict the categories for purposes that you want to call accountability which is understandable but my next question is where do we go from here if we say ok we're going to restrict or now to restrict within the category saying you've got to can only spend this much on professional services or you can't move that around i don't know how far down we want to go the fact that we're here trying to is is i think over the edge of micromanaging but some people say it's not so that you know that's up for argument as far as transparency we all have now access thanks to you to ifas we can all go and i froze and see whatever we want whenever we want so it's very transparent the thing that bothers me a little bit is that you know other than mr good no other director came up to talk about this you know and and while i understand mr  good's concerns and i empathize with them and i think other departments maybe police and fire especially may have the same issues nobody else came up to testify so that gives me reason to pause a little bit  you know i'm just trying to do this is a most efficient way we can here as a council and as you know i've been against the language from the beginning to the point where i actually had to vote no on both budget items but you know while directors have come to me and in private and said you know this this is very restrictive and might hurt us only mr good came up and testified to us so i don't  many directors have gone to other members and talked about it i just have to go by with what i've been talked about so i do put that on the administration that they didn't come up they didn't testify except again good and he has some very strong arguments but i don't know if this were me trying to do something like this to run a organization and not be able to move between categories not programs again between categories and is a huge distinction and i'm ok with that it's just going to bring a lot more work here and i really appreciate mr holcombe us saying he's willing to look look look it up again or you know go over it and review it in six months so i don't know mr holcombe has brought up some some good points so i'm going to have to really think about this a little bit more thank you thank you members other comments mr victory no thank you i will be so long with a dissertation and so elegant with my wording so i'll make this really brief first of all we've discussed this matter we've voted on this matter so many times what two or three times at least i don't see what the difference was what the difference of the outcome will be today versus the other folks secondly we went to first and second reading we had missed the he discussed a lot of pros and cons but he felt it was workable and i have not heard a great deal of cry from the department heads in fact to be perfect on this only to department heads came to me with their concerns and yet me oh ok i think it can be worked out and  i and i said to you much to cheer this is a test for all of us you said mr commas said and others said we will do whenever the needed whenever it's possible and get it done immediately have a special meanings and whatever was the concern whatever the emergency was we've been blessed in this county knock on wood we've had not too many major disasters over the number of years that i've been on this council and i hope it continues that way i know i have heard of  people saying you spent so much time and money getting ready for the emergency in things happen nothing happens and i said thank god i'd rather have nothing happen and have a disaster and then we find out how prepared we were the other thing is i've heard a few testifies today a few e mails i think to e mails i mean in my mind again the public thinks this may not be a bad idea people i talked to on the streets i was a father's day dinner last night a number of people there said yes it's time for accountability not just this administration but for many years in the past there's been a lot of questions so with that in mind i can be comfortable in overriding this veto i've talked to the administration i've got everybody's take on it i have no qualms i've done my homework i'm prepared to vote and i have no so i appreciate that and the two departments who stated concerns are the direct department to fall into my coolly and i in my committee of i e m that would be director good public works and there was some testimony doing during deliberations with i think department of environmental management had come up so i you know spoke tried to get a little more meetings with them to hear out their issues and holcombe on boston whoever so i can confidently say because it's directly michael yon in particular those two departments i am always willing to assist and move things forward and as in regards to to mr couch as point where you know what if there's you know something coming in emergency and they have to go spend overtime on cleaning up cultures to in preparation personally that is why i added labor and equipment in west maui to address these things that have been unfortunately neglected due to shortages of staff and you know labor so now they can be ahead of the ball so there's no let's harry up and clamor and get to you know harry you know clean up these guys just cause all my there's something coming possibly no we're prepared at every given moment there's no let's spend a bunch of overtime to do this so that's where i purposely you know and all of you support i thank you very much to get the adequate amount of of workers and equipment in order to address these things so we're not scrambling you know dooms day you know left final hour of who knows what's coming so i am i really confident that you maybe you know address adjust things but basically what they give us we're saying ok we agree and here you go but you chose where you want to put your money and we're just making sure it's held accountable that it's being spent that way you're asking and i feel this is a way to me to keep that in place in from the point about ifas in kiva and all these reporting things which i'm not you know thoroughly familiar but basically garbage in is garbage out and so who's putting the information in that you print up in that report it's the departments so if already people have issues and wondering is the department being account you know transparency and being held accountable for how they're spending their there are many as well there in putting that into these reports is speaking now and we don't know that there's questions to ask that something wasn't done you know done in the we presented it and what have you so you know personally i guess in the end my comments are in reflection that i think this is a needed step to take in the points that mr holcombe i had mention as in accountability transparency also hold the departments administration in power for mean with what they step up here to tell us they're going to do so chair i just want to say thank you for the opportunity for all of us to be here and to share our i support the motion to overwrite this veto and i think we need to be mindful that it's an attempt really for counsel to be able to address very accommodating and you know it's what was said no other directors have come to us as far as the challenge that they probably will  performance and it is in the best interests of our public that departments be more responsive to meeting the needs of the public if it if it means better parks if it nests or whatever it may be to make it worth worthwhile but overall i have to see our departments do us a per job with their employees so mr mayor may have his reasonings and i do respect him for his approach to try and make it work according to what he feels but i feel as a council we went through this like mr vick to reno said during the budget session and we put in some major hours to come up with what we've come up with c account process and if you compare that process to what has occurred now you could kind of say that this is a hybrid because it is not the same accounting as it was prior to linda lingle the a b c accounting back then is not what it is what we're imposing now it's i would say a hybrid because now you've incorporated the program budgeting along with a little bit more restrictions in terms of accountability when i talk when i what i mean by that is when we go through our budget and i can only speak of my three budget sessions i've gone through i have noticed that when the budgets are being presented by the departments it is presented in a program budget within that an a b c account and they're they're testifying or they're representing that this is the monies that is going to be spent and how it's going to be spent within these categories ok i take it as faith face value and believe in that fact that that money's going to be spent the way it is the way it was represented come to see that the next budget session the money is not spent the way they had represented so what mr hall comma has done as the budget chair is basically codified put it in law that says when you represent that this you're going to spend a certain amount of money then that's what you're going to have to do by law this clearly just caught  the rules in the process so in my experience i've gone through the straight out program budgeting that linda linda linda lingle philosophy i have yet to experience this hybrid put approach and so i am more than willing open minded to see if we can change it it's a work in process if there are things that we need to change to make it better to be more efficient to be more transparent to be more accountability for the performance as well then we will change it this is a work in process like any legislation we've got to learn from our mistakes and if we we go through this process and we find that it doesn't work we will fix it so i'm open enough to give it a try but if it doesn't work i am more than definitely going to be on that that position to change it so thank you chair thank you you know members i think the administration with mr ba and the mayor and the rest of the of his team deserve a lot of credit forgiveness a very good budget and as you all know each year we don't make humongous changes you know some departments i'm sure feel like job is to present the budget to us our job is to review it and set the budget but it's our fundamental responsibility to control the purse strings of the county that's why we have the final say in the numbers placed in the budget we also have the final say with respect to any limitations or restrictions that we want to place in the budget so i think we've done as holcombe a set exactly what we are responsible for doing it's also been pointed out that the the budget is presented in these a b and c accounts and so all we're doing is saying we appreciate your presentation and now we want to hold you to it and you know to mr guzman's and mr couch as point regarding how this compares to earlier budgeting what mr couch stated about going to the next line down is actually what the mayor was referring to in his piece because in the past the limitations were on every line item not not in every category so that's where you couldn't spend any more for pencils if you had run out of your office supplies budget this is not what we're doing we're doing something very different so when i read the various objections that the mayor has put forth i don't believe any of those objections hold water because if you look at each one of them they're just not quite on point his point about us doing you know going back to an antiquated practice that was done twenty years ago is simply a misrepresentation of the facts and mr r koua to his credit was one of the fiscal hawks when he was in the council i think it could very easily be said that if you were sitting here today and there were it was a mayor of a cushy up stairs that wanted a new second you know a little out of sorts well he put those restrictions on very willingly so i you know i i give him a lot of credit for coming up with a very good budget but he's also got to understand that there are things that have happened over the last couple of years and in his prior administration where there have been items misspent and as mr couch says maybe the the card issue represented expenditures it all came out of the proper account well we don't have that situation in solid waste and the threatened landfill closures and cutbacks in trash pickups were all driven by overspending in their b account by one point three million dollars by contracting for services two and three years into the future and then coming back and say well we don't have any money to pay our staff well that's because we have a program budget that is a as as far as i'm concerned it's the poster child of why this is an appropriate move because we should not be putting ourselves in a position of having to deal with a financial crisis of the making of a department that was not operating properly and without a proper level of supervision so i don't know about you guys but i don't want our services to be cut back because we have overspent by zero a million three in our b accounts i don't want to be sitting here at the end of the year looking at a couple million or i don't know how many millions of dollars in equipment is going to get purchased between the march the mid march report that we received and the end of the fiscal year i think it's going to be a big number because they're looking at this a b and c account  restriction as a problem for them to do their christmas shopping in june last year both last year and this year we requested a list of unbudgeted expenditures on equipment sun include contracts that have been left for beyond the end of the fiscal year this is just equipment last year in mid march the equipment  purchases that were unbudgeted amounted to two hundred fifty six thousand dollars by the end of the year that are grown to over a million this year in mid march we were already at one point two million and budget expenditures what is going to be at the end of the year i'm guessing at least two but i wouldn't be shocked if it's three million so the one thing that this will do immediately is stop the christmas shopping at the end of the fiscal year if somebody has saved up money in one account they want to spend it somewhere else this is going to save us some bucks by simply putting a restriction on that so you know i understand i manage a hotel which is a mid sized department here in the  county i can live with this as a manager if i plan properly and control my expenses throughout the year i can manage with this restriction the other thing we need to talk about it and be reminded of is that the emergencies are only going to be emergencies at the end of the fiscal year so we're only talking a very short amount of time because prior to that let's say for the first eight months you've got twelve months of labor expenditure of it or labor money available to you so what's you don't have to call and ask us for anything if you run into emergency it's only go when you're down to the last month of the last pay period of the month and up in june that you're going to have to blow the whistle and say i don't know if i can do this because i may run out of money i don't have enough money for overtime all this is easily solvable because the way mr hope cama has set it up with mr baez to do the non emergency things but it's also in the charter that if there is an emergency has to be dealt with it can be dealt with in a very short amount of time i've said earlier that with this direct referral i will also commit to hole in a special posting for a special council meeting the day we get the request from the administration that means we can do anything by simply discharging the measure and dealing to it in a council meeting and passing it out that's six days so i'm very comfortable with the restrictions i know that it's not comfortable for all departments but it's only uncomfortable for those departments who have not been just have to use that word again persnickety about how they have put their budgets together so if you've if you've been a little lazy in how you put the budget together because you have the flexibility of moving money from a to b and b c and c to b and c to a then you may have some challenges but again you're not going to have those challenges until the end of the year so i'm i'm very comfortable with what  okama has led us down the path to do you know some of the members and earlier conversations that while this hasn't had much discussion but i know as as budget chair for two years we talked about it a lot because this is one of those things that i have always felt the menu was offering a way to many attractive things as we moved into the close of the fiscal year so with that i also and this won't surprise many of you support mr motion is there for the discussion approved whether you'd be for  you know so this is no magic bullet in budgeting or for an unseen mystery there is only the integrity and confidence of our people into those that serve that to me is the key areas that right now this community is looking for i think this step will help to those initial critical improvements to restore the confidence that we expect  gone down in their approval ratings colonies and this apologies have gone slightly up in their performance and confidence of their people is because we get the job done and we'll do it transparently and we'll make those accountable accountable so i think our members for continuing the path of what i believe is restoring the trust and i think we are happy to see that whatever it be i'm with i agree with nothing is static everything is continually a work of progress and six months from now i hope that we can see some of this research is may not be needed in the future because of compliance because of performance and of course one except instead of being responsible for actions i think that is one thing people want that we take responsibility for actions we make a lot of decisions sellout things when the you know what hits the fan everybody starts ducking and nobody wants to take responsibility but then they shouldn't be in those positions of authority so i appreciate the members points of view i believe this is in the best interests of our colony and our communities and i thank you for this opportunity i want to thank you for lidia's through this because i think it is an important move provide more transparency and accountability but i think it's something the livable and i think it's i think the administration although they've been objecting to what we're doing i think it speaks volumes that mr good  the only person who's come down to make a presentation and i've not had a single individual come to tell me that there's a big problem with this so i appreciate it because i i think we're moving in a very responsible direction and i believe the people expect us to hold the administration accountable and i think the administration in the end is going to feel probably a little better because they'll be able to say hey we can't do that we've got to stick with you know within the rules that the council is set to i think is a very healthy thing for us to do it may provide them with  i just want to know if there's anything to be of concern in regards to a comma in mayor's letter here about this is an outdated method not considered a best practices approach to budgeting by government finance officers association g f o a and the reason for the question is because during bond ratings and things of that nature is that an issue that we need to look at not sure the  that comment if any of us have i don't believe it's a valid concern because i think anyone who's involved in it in budgeting and bond rating will look at spending restrictions as a positive not a negative but as you said you know when i brought up the fact that only mr good came up here speaks volumes that maybe they're not so worried about it or if they are they're not willing to come up and talk about it which i don't understand that so you know i'm all for i don't think it's any more transparent than what it is now and definitely for transparency but you know if if if we don't get the huon cry from the people who is affecting no sense you know i mean so and i agree with pretty much what everybody said specially m boozman it is a hybrid because you're right it was a line item before it became program and so it's kind of stepping down a notch hopefully we don't step down further than back to a line item because that's crazy and  o i can be supportive of it at this time thank you to your your comment about transparency this is where i see this measure as providing much more transparency and it has to do with the equipment shopping that goes on right now you know we we learn about it but only after the fact so with this measure if there's equipment that is necessary they need to come to us they need to have it presented in a public arena right now there's no transparency in that process they simply go out and buy it and you know we've had big pieces of equipment in that list of a to one point two million dollars one very big piece of equipment and others that are numerous pieces of equipment so you know for me this is definitely a move to make it more transparent if we're going to have to replace things and you know i felt for a long time that what we do here because we're under the sunshine law and because of the way we operate everything we do here is transparent what we do on the budget is on t v ad nauseum i mean i i'm sure people use it to get to sleep more than they look at it for information but actions by the administration can be done without any public notice without any public knowledge without any scrutiny so this is simply putting a level of public scrutiny and scrutiny by the council on a process that i think has gotten a little bit out of control because it is a program budget and they can move money wherever they like and i think all may have heard the same thing i've heard but one department head told me once i really don't care where you put the money because once i get the budget i can spend it wherever i like what i don't like that i know if i had that that attitude my boss of the hotel would wouldn't put up with it so i've said enough history you know what i think i had a question on the word you but i think i have to bring up one more point and that's very very important as you mention and some others have mentioned at the end it's like christmas in june you know you heard that terminology christmas in june but you know i think one of the biggest factors that has predicated that is the fact that if you don't spend it part of it is your penalize the next year because we look at like hey you didn't buy this hate you didn't spend this money so we're going to penalize and give you less and sometimes i wonder if it's really fiscal prudence on the department spies should be paralyzed maybe we should be looking at some we ward now i know in your world and in the corporate world there's things called bonuses and other issues that when you do a good job and your boss is happy and you've made what they beyond expectations of whatever your profit goals were all whatever your seals goals were whatever it may be there is some kind of reward at the end in government really can do that but i think kind of i think dam has made the fear factor of if i have left over the next year th give me less i think this is one of the real challenges we face mr chair and i'm not knocking the system i'm just saying it is prevalent across the board i hear that from the departments all the time and yet some of them really do try to be frugal they really do use fiscal prudence and not expand whenever and wherever they can so how can we recognize that how can we make sure that they don't feel like they're being penalize when they do a good job fiscally for us so let us not forget that factor i think this is this is really the core core behind this whole issue of a b and c accounts you do a good job maybe you stretch that dozer for have whatever the of the rationale or reason for that that money's not being spent so i guess that's something i think is important but i close to say that mr  made a good point that i've always professed this we should check and every three years every six months or whatever the time frame we should go back and see how things are working instead of waiting like in this case what we have to do now with our p cards and i purchase order have to have an audit because we waited so many years nobody looked into it and all of a sudden there seems to be improprieties why not check every three or five years whatever group of people are sitting in these chairs and have them responsible to make sure one is being done right to it's been done in fishing me and three whatever changes need to be made let's make them now and not wait to something gets out of hand i think that's the other challenge government has always faced we wait reactionary instead of proactive and so much the chair i can support when we still come has brought forth i think every council member including mr cults has seen the value of this we all want to give it a chance and if it doesn't work like mr okama said in six months he'll be right there to evaluate it it's not working whatever changes need to be made he's willing along with our breeze with our participation make those changes so thank you i think the public can feel very confident in the process we've gone through to make this a move mean mean and efficient budget thank you joe thank you members any further comment see none of those in favor of the motion please say i