Houston council questions budget

HOUSTON — Houston City Councilman Lance Wilson accused Mayor Virgie Thompson Thursday of deliberately omitting from city budget documents more than $50,000 in revenue generated by the city’s police department to make her case for a property tax increase to pay for police services.

“I believe there was a deliberate attempt to mislead the council and public into believing the police budget is in bad shape, when it isn’t,” Wilson says in an e-mail to the Frontiersman after the hastily convened council work session at Houston City Hall Feb. 24. “The numbers don’t add up. If Mayor Thompson, Deputy Mayor (Jim) Johansen and Councilmember (Kathleen) Barney want to cut Houston’s Police Department, they need to look for another excuse.”

It has been Wilson’s contention for more than a month that the new mayor and others on the council introduced the idea of asking voters for a mill levy hike between .5 and 1.5 mills to fund the police department because they ultimately want to dismantle the department.

Wilson said he is confident residents would vote down such a tax increase, giving the mayor confirmation that police services were not valued by constituents.

Thompson, Johansen and Barney made it clear during Thursday’s meeting, however, that they have nothing against the police department or its officers — they simply believe it needs a more reliable income source than traffic fines, impounds and Permanent Fund Dividend levies on scofflaws.

“We want the cops here. It makes us feel safer,” Johansen said. “However, they are writing tickets to help pay for the department. Realistically, there should be a certain percentage of their income from that, but unfortunately because the police department was created without fiscal intelligence, it makes them have to work even harder. The city has to fork over more money and strip mine the city every year … and I think the fire department is tired of it and the administration is tired of it.”

City Treasurer Carolyn Grabowski said Houston’s budget is constantly in flux and that nothing was intentionally excluded from the latest figures.

She expressed frustration over never knowing for sure whether there will be enough money to cover payroll and other bills — especially since two police officers recently racked up a total of 44.5 hours of overtime within a two-week period, costing the city another $806 in payroll expenses.

Although the city isn’t required to pay time-and-a-half for the officers’ extra hours, any additional pay they receive puts a tighter squeeze on the budget, Grabowski said.

“I was astounded when I was doing payroll and saw how much those two officers had turned in. That’s like a whole extra person,” she said. “I call that a mismanagement of resources. It’s Capt. (Charley) McAnally’s job to keep track of that. Your personnel are your resources.”

Since McAnally is exempt from overtime pay and is now salaried, Grabowski believes he should have picked up some of those extra hours himself to prevent subordinates from working them.

As for the more than $40,000 Wilson claims was intentionally missing from the budget documents outlining police department revenue, Grabowski explained that money was collected last October for citations written a couple of years ago.

“It takes time for that income to come in and then it’s gone to cover bills,” she said, adding she thinks McAnally simply doesn’t understand how the budget works.

“We can’t afford to pay overtime. Period,” Johansen said.

McAnally, Wilson and former mayor Roger Purcell have argued that the police department is able to bring in enough revenue on its own to sustain itself and they don’t understand why the city would need to consider raising property taxes to support police services.

But Thompson, Johansen and Grabowski have an issue with that.

“Holy cow. How can you expect a department to create its own income?” Thompson said. “That’s not fair. When the police department was started in 2004, there was no plan, there was no budget, there was nothing. It’s highly unethical, actually, for a department to have to pay for itself.”

McAnally told Grabowski he just wished she had met with him before the latest budget figures were released and the work session was called a week ago so that he could be better informed and prepared for the meeting.

Grabowski said she’d be happy to meet with him and show him where all the funds and expenses are in the computer.

“I would love to do that,” McAnally told her.

The council’s next regular meeting is 7 p.m., March 10 at city hall, Mile 57 Parks Highway. Check the city’s website at houstonak.com to keep tabs on other special sessions on its calendar.

For more information on the city budget, contact Grabowski at 892-6869.

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.McKee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.