Why Robert Grey and Bill Pantele are in Dire Straits

[To be read with the Dire Straits Grammy-winning song "Money for Nothing" playing in the background on your MTV].

By Paul Goldman

Whose wasting the most taxpayer money, Robert Grey by backing the Mayor's budget spending, or Bill Pantele, by opposing it?

Truth is, both Robert and Bill are both wasting big $, indeed the same Big $, but at least Mr. Grey can say he isn't trying to hide anything. For some reason, the local news media has yet to inform the public about the level of spending in certain key areas at City Hall during these first two months of the new fiscal year: and how the rate of spending compares to the expected level of spending in such areas as contained in the City Council budget, which Mr. Pantele and his City Council posse claim is legal, although they refuse to try and enforce it!

Robert, Bill and I are lawyers of sorts, so we know this basic tenet of law, namely that the chief executive of a locality must have legal authority, through action by the legislative branch, before he or she can legally expend public funds. The Wilder Administration says it has such lawful authority due to the automatic enactment of the Mayor's budget on account of the failure of the Council to pass it's budget according to the requirements of the City Charter.

As indicated, big firm corporate lawyer Mr. Grey agrees with Hizzoner: small firm general practice lawyer Mr. Pantele naturally backs his own handiwork.

But focusing on the legal side of the feud misses the wasteful spending side, for as the feudists fiddle, the Wilder Administration burns up public dollars. The Council budget and the Mayor's budget differed significantly in certain areas of spending. However, the actual total annual amount of such spending is only one aspect of how big $ money can be wasted: there is also the rate of monthly spending in these certain areas by City Hall.

Remember: An executive generally has discretion as to the rate of his/her spending in any given month in many areas unless the law provides otherwise. Soon, we will be 2 months into the new budget year. The Wilder Administration says it is following their spending plan, not the Council's, to the extent there are no legally binding ordinances on the books.

What Big $ waste can this situation produce? Let's use round numbers to develop a hypothetical example. Assume the Mayor's budget proposed spending say $2,000,000 for public relations. The Council budget however only appropriated $1,000,000 in this area. .

Thus, assume they are are feuding over which is the legal appropriation, $2M or $1M.

But under either legal theory, the Mayor could spend $1M during this FY 09 before it could be argued that he has exceeded the law, since even if the Council budget was to be ultimately proven to be the legal one, their budget gave the Mayor $1M to spend in that area.

So here is the "rub" as they say. The Council appropriation in the above example presumed that this $1M would be spent over the 12 month period in some fairly regular fashion. But standard practice would be to leave the monthly the rate of such spending for the executive to decide. Thus, in the example above, the Mayor has the legal right to spend the full $1M during the last six months of his term, which is the first six months of the current fiscal year.

Query: Going from the above example used to explain the budget math to what is actually going in Richmond right, is the Council's failure on the budget, and the media's failing to focus on the issue, leading to a waste big $ due to the Wilder Administration's rate of spending in certain areas?

Remember: In the example above, the Council presumably thought that any spending in excess of it's $1M was wasteful and unnecessary. But if the Wilder Administration, using the math above, was spending at a rate of 2x what the Council thought was necessary, this would equate to the Mayor exhausting the entire million in just six months.

The above is just a example to help explain basic budget math.

But between Wilder and Grey's legal position on one side, and Pantele along with City Council on the other side, this begs the question:

What is the rate that Mayor Wilder is burning up public money in certain areas?

The Mayor says things are going along as usual at City Hall.

What does that mean in terms of spending in certain areas?

Surely Council, by virtue of elective responsibility, and the media, by the obligations of the fourth estate, have a duty to get the public the facts so we can judge ourselves.

Mr. Pantele objected to my saying that he and the other Council members, along with the staff of City Hall and City Council, were wheeling and dealing behind closed doors during these many weeks of the unprecedented situation of having no budget. He said they were hiding nothing.

But yet, the public has been told nothing officially, as Councilwoman Ellen Robertson, head of the Finance Committee, admitted in the RTD on Tuesday.

Mr. Pantele claims in his campaign literature that wants to be the "people's Mayor." Mr. Grey in his campaign handout says he has a different "attitude" than the Wilder Administration and that the people deserve "new approaches."

Unfortunately, their talk may not be very cheap at all: in their own way, they are perpetuating the same old things in the same old ways, getting the same old results.

More legalese from lawyers who, while taking different sides of the argument, wind-up justifying what could be just another Big $ raid on the public treasury.