EDITOR:
On March 17, 2023 The Landmark published a letter to the editor from Parkville resident Gordon Cook. Mr. Cook’s letter requires some clarification.
Mr. Cook starts his letter with a quote from a letter sent to him in response to his request for the City of Parkville’s 2023 financial projections. The board of aldermen reviewed the city’s 2023-2027 financial forecast in several open meetings as part of the deliberations and consideration of the 2023 city budget, as well as the decision to place the question of taxes on the upcoming ballot.
All of the information is available on the city’s website:
https://parkvillemo.gov/government/documents.
Mr. Cook requested not just the pdf of the available information, but the information in an Excel format and all associated foundational spreadsheets. City staff responded that they were happy to do this, but the associated spreadsheets include confidential, personnel information regarding health and other benefits chosen by employees, which is protected by HIPAA. We informed Mr. Cook that it would take an estimated five hours of staff time to redact the personnel information from the associated spreadsheets and that would cost $85 ($17/hr).
Mr. Cook was not satisfied with this response. City staff then sent the Excel spreadsheet that included the 5-year projection but not all the supporting personnel information with the following response:
“The city did develop a long term financial plan with financial projections, which we refer to as the “Forecast” document. This document demonstrates the city’s revenue shortfall, and I have attached that document for you. However, your request for the base data is more difficult in that not all of the information may be shared due to confidentiality of employee personal information, which is protected – not the salary information as that is definitely public record – this information drills down to the personal benefit selection of every employee.
“In order to provide the base information you have requested, we will need to redact closed information consisting of employee personal information. The $85 charge includes the time estimated to compile the requested records and redact closed information from those records.”
I want to assure the citizens, that as can be seen, the city does indeed do a financial projection every year and this information is readily available to the public, including Mr. Cook. Also, we are not by law, and acceptable policy, allowed to give out our employees’ personal information. The projections show the city’s fund balance propped up in 2022 and 2023 by one-time transfers of Federal ARPA (American Recue Plan Act) funds, which will no longer be available, and then continuing fund balances moving to negative.
The fact of the matter is that the current Parkville budget cannot be balanced at our current staffing and service levels. The only thing keeping our budget in balance in 2023 is that we have nine unfilled positions, including four police officer positions. When we fill these positions – which we continue to actively recruit – the city will need to use our reserves (the city’s savings account) to balance our budget.
Most of Mr. Cook’s letter is spent discussing a tax levy that took place two decades ago when neither current elected officials nor staff was involved with the city. The board of aldermen and mayor are nine residents of Parkville that ran for public office to make Parkville the best city possible. That is our goal. We have a first class staff that is pursuing every option to provide the high quality services the residents of Parkville expect.
The board approved the two tax initiatives to address this imbalance and keep the city’s budget balanced for years to come. This will help us address the needs of a growing city, maintain high levels of service, and may allow the city to take advantage of available federal capital improvement funds for critical infrastructure improvements that will not be available in the future.
More information on the tax proposals can be found at https://proparkville.com.
--Dean Katerndahl
Mayor
City of Parkville