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Dissatisfaction with 2007 budget prep process motivated motion to terminate contract, says Riga Councilman Fodge
As was reported in an article last week, Councilman Jim Fodge made a resolution at the December 19, 2006 Riga Town Board meeting to end the town’s employment of a Syracuse firm, Fiscal Advisors and Marketing, Inc., which oversaw 2007 budget preparation processes. In a telephone conversation last week, Fodge said he wanted to be clear about his intent in making the resolution -- that his doing so reflected his own dissatisfaction with the budget preparation procedures. He said he had supported hiring the company initially, but was not satisfied with the timeliness of aspects of the budget preparation and felt the town should end their contract with the service provider before more money was spent. Discussion about the topic as reported in the approved minutes for that meeting included the following text: “He (Councilmember Jim Fodge) does feel that the Board has wasted a great amount of taxpayer’s money with going with them (Financial Advisors) and he is ashamed in his part of it, as he pushed it to start with.” As stated in the December 31 article, Supervisor Pam Moore wanted the board to hold the vote on discontinuing use of the firm until more discussion could take place. Moore’s comments documented in the approved minutes included: “If the Board is unhappy with the process, it is not fair to blame it all on the consultant, Fiscal Advisors, when there are institutional problems that exist with respect to how we handle and how we are going to be able to handle increasing mandates from the state. She feels they (board members) need to face that fact and there are a number of ways to handle it, but blaming the consultant is not a fair thing to do, when part of the responsibility rests with the system that wasn’t amenable to being just plugged in.” For the full text of the meeting minutes, visit the town’s web site: January 7, 2007 |