Every year, city staffers put together all the materials so that budget committee members like me (you, someday?) can understand both the rules and what happened.  This year's set of meetings was no exception.  

This experience taught me very clearly that our North Bend public servants -- our city staff -- are well equipped to bring any new person up to speed quickly with financials, budging, and laws needed to participate in strategic decision making that is the work of the city council.  *If* that person is willing to learn, of course. But for those of us who put personal agenda first, maybe they don't want to learn...

During the June 2021 meetings, I got an earful concerning just how the 911 Call Center shared across Coos communities fell apart. Our public safety officials walked away from the agreement, much to the disappointment expressed by the public after hearing about the fallout. Unfortunately, media coverage wasn't enough to get the truth out there, as far as I heard it. 

What I heard was that North Bend official walked away when discussions around how joint decision making were discussed. Voting power of committee members was going to be based on population which sounds good until you get the experience of the voting for splitting costs per community instead of by population served. Our chiefs had been in communities where shared resources ended with smaller communities paying more than their fair share because larger communities had "the votes". 

Community agreements with one another cannot run well, particuarly out here in rural areas, with this kind of arrangement. Good business practice of mutual benefit can be brought in to avoid this in future arrangements.

While discussing how the community voted to lower public safety fee back to $15 and voted down the council's ability to levy new fees, I got an earful on what actually happened to bring that to light.

1. The city can bring a petition to the ballot on any matter they see fit.

2. The relatively new police chief at that time had taken the job based on creating a "community-centered" policing model, which in his vision translated to three-person shifts in North Bend over the two-person shifts. That 33% increase in staffing translated to a $500,000 deficit in funding.

3. City Council chose to believe that was the right course for North Bend and to fund the gap started and increase the public safety fee which happened *way* to fast for us, residence, culminating in our votes on the two ballot initiatives.

4. Then the June 2021 murders happened (dead Dad of suspect at RV park and 2 killed in front of dispensary down town).

5. And *then*, when the city administrator asked for more details (Freedom of Information Act), the chief hightailed it out.

6. After math: when a former police chief took over for the newly departed chief, his analysis of the department resulted in some shift changes and a few other efficiencies that could be done to reduce the overall cost of public safety. It is still a lean department, but there's less mandatory overtime which means a better sustained system. Could we use a 3-person shift? Absolutely. Do the tax payers support the increased cost of this? Not so far.  It's an example of how decisions are like navigating boats: we headed in a directly that seemed safest, best, and a big wave prevented us from getting there. This is how strategic decision making works: you try, sometimes you fail, you update; you try again, perhaps fail, you update; try again, and on and on.

There were clearly angry conversations precipitating in the chief's resignation and lots of nefarious accusations abound in our community around this. But *I* believe, after hearing this particular police chiefs description of the "community policing" he was hired to build, that he simply wasn't here long enough to feel connected. When his big idea for a larger force was accepted by council then summarily rejected by the citizens, he found work elsewhere.

It's easy for us to imagine that public officials are different from the rest of us. But, honestly, it's a work-a-day world. I don't blame that chief for moving on or being angry about an opportunity that went awry. I also think the city administrator's efforts to get more information were well intended. This triple murder with more injured people was a *big* event here that deserved more information than what we got. 

It's also a great example of how the gossip mill really turns things inside out.

City Budget Committees are required by Oregon state law to included an annual review of the upcoming budget which starts 7-1 and ends 6-30 of the following year.  That review is required to have citizens as a part of Oregon's **awesome** government transparency laws. I found the volunteer form for North Bend and got accepted to be a citizen witness, as it were, for FY2021, 2022, and 2023. The meetings happen in June, just before the fiscal year starts.

I love numbers and I learned a great deal about how public (tax payer funded) budgets work while I was on a contract at SWOCC.  And there are some *extremely* important takeaways about the budget we all should be aware of:

• Expenses for every fiscal year start in June, but tax revenues for that year don't start flowing in until the fall. Can you imagine having to wade through 3-4 months of living before you got your paycheck?? Well, every tax-funded entity has to deal with that *every year*!

• That big pile of "Unallocated Funds" is not just a pile of cash waiting to be spent. That's the money that is intended to cover the expenses like payroll, utility bills and everything else while the organization waits for their "paycheck" from tax payers to roll in.  It's already spent, essentially.