Greg Owens 21:22
Can you explain, explain, explain that a little bit to me to make sure I understand. Yeah. Know, your budget, can you budget through a budget and account the we Yeah.
Mark Moses 21:31
Because Because here’s cities have gotten into trouble by backing up a second. Accounting is very technical. And people are, are mostly their eyes glaze over, when they see a municipal financial report, it does take a certain specialized knowledge and orientation to make sense of it. Also, it’s backward looking, it’s what happened last year. And, and cities aren’t very fast in putting out their financials. So it’s more like six months after the year ended what happened last year. So we’re talking about, you know, what happened a year and a half ago, for the most part. So there are a lot of things that that detract from, I think the interest level and usability of financial reports. And yet, they do give you a consistent guide and assessment of the city’s position. But it’s where the money was where the money was, like, it’s like you were in a business, you want to know, you want your fingers on the pulse of, you know, and you usually, you know, small businesses usually take a month to month kind of perspective on, you know, how, you know, was this a good month compared to last month? Or if it’s a seasonal thing? How is this month compared to this month last year? And so, you know, you, you’re, you’re trying to evaluate, and you’re not doing that through a political filter, you want to know what’s like, what’s really going on?
Greg Owens 23:04
Like, if I see like, wow, we’re spending a lot of money on interest, what’s going on there, right? Like, what happened? What happened within our decision making process? Exactly, that all of a sudden, those, those fees have gone up like parking, parking has gone up crazy this year. For us? It was like, I was like looking at what’s going on with our doing projects. Oh, it’s because of COVID. And we’re doing a lot of projects during the daytime in San Francisco. So we’re having to pay all these parking fees. Right.
Mark Moses 23:36
And so cities do not produce financial statements. Monthly, they produce them annually. And the things that they do produce monthly, are, are very sketchy, broad brush, not not true financial statements, because cities are not. They don’t don’t close their books every month. And so Wow, the so it’s basically a once a year activity. And so you don’t really get any momentum going right? When you only look at something once a year. And again, it’s backward looking. It’s it’s difficult. And it’s it’s not really where the interest in action is the interest in action is on the budget side, where you’re programming resources, you’re spending resources, because it’s there, you’re dealing with the decisions to spam.
Greg Owens 24:32
And so and that’s where the politics come involved to because you mentioned like one point of it was like, Maybe this particular mayor has sort of an agenda and wants to get up in front of everybody and do a ribbon cutting with some oversized scissors straight and they want and they want to have like that’s a big deal. So they want to make sure and so no matter what that project is going to keep going through even if it’s going over budget, right? actly Exactly. Because this is This is their agenda. Right? Exactly. And that’s where
Mark Moses 25:04
everything becomes about justifying, just, you know, those kinds of decisions, like, yeah, they want to see the pet project go. And so they’re determined. And so it’s, it’s kind of, it’s not, from the point of view of any standard of chemistry afford this, it’s find a way to make it happen. And so you layer enough of those decisions on top of each other. And you wake up one day, and you’re, you’re a bit out of control in terms of your bending. And then from there, it’s, you know, maybe some infrastructure goes unattended, maybe it’s a push for, for more taxes, maybe something else slips that is maybe not as noticeable. Or maybe you start chipping away at some of your financial resources. And so, yes, when I say, budget, the way you account and account the way you budget, I mean, where you’re budgeting is truly linked to a measure of your resources, as they actually are measured, not not coming up with rationalizations for how you can afford something. Right. And so which is the again, that’s the more typical pattern and cities have been embarrassed by? I mean, typical pattern, right is, you know, you hear oh, the city is got a deficit of $2 million, but no one really explains that it’s just a number that floats out there. And, and then mysteriously, by the time they adopt the budget, a couple months later, they’ve, they balanced the budget. But again, there’s no explanation as to how or what these dynamics are, it’s just people are relieved, it’s like, okay, so we don’t have a deficit, this, you know, a balanced budget, that sounds good. And then you’ll hear, you know, four or five months later, when the books are close, oh, there’s a surplus. It’s like, Well, where did that come from? I mean, it’s like, we went from deficit discussions to surplus discussions and a period of eight months. Like, what, you know, what really transpired here. And so, this is really, what motivated me to write the book is I wanted to clarify these things, because a lot of time is wasted and energy wasted in this confusion. And, and this, and the cycle continues of, you know, you use spend money on the things that are politically popular without regard for the actual resources, you scrambled to cover things. And then the next budget cycle, you do it all again, and, you know, some cities may, you know, have resources that helped prop them up in the face of that, and but it did, from my point of view, that’s still wasted resources, because that just means they’re there. The city is sucking more out of the local economy, whether it’s property taxes or sales taxes or, or other ways of, of extracting resources from, from the local economy. And so, to that extent, I think even cities that you might consider rich, are, are in a state of crisis, because they’re, they’re on this path, with no designated way out.
Greg Owens 28:41
Do you think so a little bit of the political agenda here, the you have these elected officials that are there for maybe two to three years or four years, whatever their term is, right? And so they have their agenda and that kind of thing, but they can only push things so far, right, based on the budget and that kind of thing. And then there’s a new what i’ve what I’ve been witnessing over the last bunch of years here in California anyway, is the propositions where the citizens vote for something, and they want it to happen. Right. And, and I’m, I haven’t been liking the proposition system, because when I’m reading them as a citizen, I don’t understand, right? And don’t know what they’re asking of me and what it what it, what the ramifications are, and I don’t have the time to really research it, you know, and it sounds like a good idea. Maybe it’s like, we want to increase housing here in Mill Valley. And we’re gonna that’s gonna be the major focus over the next five years and we’re gonna increase taxes. But we have no understanding of what that means to the city to take on that project.
Mark Moses 29:46
Yeah, and I would say,
Greg Owens 29:49
and that’s a big that’s a big deal, right? Because now the city is sort of like okay, we this has been voted through. We’re going to now implement taxing it now. We’re gonna have to hire some people to figure out this whole thing. And that becomes another lie. As you mentioned earlier, it’s like scope creep, right? Like, you now you just add another whole layer of bureaucracy without like, really thinking it through.
Mark Moses 30:13
Yeah. And so that again, I think I mean, theoretically, you know, maybe the proposition is, is written better or worse than, than the way the city would have constructed the same thing. But But regardless, it’s what it’s just what you said is scope creep, is whether it’s coming prompted from the outside through a proposition, kind of process or, or a lobbying group or special interest, or the city itself. It’s, it’s scope creep. And so, and I think that’s something that, that people should be aware of that, you know, I know, in this day and age, we, you know, we look to the government to solve a lot of problems. And as someone who’s been inside these organizations for three decades, I can say, with a lot of confidence that there many of the problems that the community thinks that the city is well positioned to solve. They’re not. And and it’s, I mean, I just see, it’s a mistake as, as cities take on more, I mean, think I’m not an expert on this subject, but but it is kind of topical homelessness. Right? Yeah. It’s, you know, that is convenient. Because, you know, everyone knows where City Hall is. There’s a problem. So who do you go to solve it, you go to the city, very tempting. And I get it, I get that it’s tempting, because you say you pay your taxes, you know, the city has this authority. It’s it’s kind of a one stop shop, let’s go there. But what happens? I mean, I watched this in a couple cities where so called pilot programs to deal with homelessness, three year pilot programs to deal with the issue are still around eight years later. And and there’s a bigger problem than when it started. And so without going to all the dynamics of how that phenomenon takes place. Or, or cities now view like they own the problem. And I wish I could cite this off the top of my head, but I can’t I was reading about, I think it’s a city in southern California, where they closed down a group that was trying to feed homeless people. And because they weren’t properly authorized, or they didn’t have the right permits. And so here is a charitable organization that’s trying to trying to feed some people. But see, now they’re now they’re in the city’s domain of activity, right? Because the city now is taking ownership of this problem. And so now, it’s not just competing, because the cities don’t really compete. Right. They, they monopolize. And so, so they, they push out the charitable organizations that are trying to help and, and that goes for giving shelter or feeding. And so and now they’ve got something that there’s no graceful exit strategy. I mean, if you start a business, and you decided this was not such a great idea, you can close it down. And it may be disruptive to you personally into employees, but not a whole community. And so and it’s not a political issue in the community. It’s a private, it’s a private affair,
Greg Owens 33:56
and a political meeting emotional too, because there’s people that are emotionally attached to some of these ideas. Right.
Mark Moses 34:01
Exactly, exactly. And so and so a city has no graceful way out once it gets involved in these things. And so you see that pattern again and again. And I’ve seen it with, you know, the cannabis industry, where it’s like, okay, the cities are gonna make decisions and regulate this. They see it as Oh, wow, great way to increase revenue. And so, you know, but then there’s this other thing, but what about the image if we have too many and so, so now you’ve got this, you know, this. Again, it’s a mini planned economy. This is a although in this case around camp that Canada’s economy, we’re going to decide how many people you can have Is it four, is it six? And it’s like they don’t know what’s right.
Greg Owens 34:54
They just because it’s also brand new. They don’t know what
Mark Moses 34:57
No, they don’t know what the market is. They don’t know what they’re doing. doing and they terrorize these businesses with, with processes that are just still thought out. And these are people that have to plan their businesses, right in terms of their investment their employees and make their decisions. And they don’t know, the landscape
Greg Owens 35:19
is more so confusing, too. I mean, I, I’ve been involved in quite a few different permitting processes that are Yeah. Doesn’t make any sense. It’s confusing. One Agency is saying one thing, another agency saying another and you’re like, going back and forth wasting a lot of time. I can only imagine the cannabis industry because you’re in Marin County. That’s not even legal yet. I don’t think to have a cannabis to have a cannabis dispensary store.
Mark Moses 35:48
Oh, right. Yeah, nobody, I think yeah, I don’t think anybody’s approved the store fronts,
Greg Owens 35:52
I think right. And deliveries is there’s some delivery, certainly, right. There’s delivery services, but they for some reason, they can’t make a decision on storefront which is so think about surrounded by storefronts, right, right. The other Bay Area cities have it. Right. So
Mark Moses 36:07
think about what that does, though. The you confuse the suppliers, you confuse the customer who’s you know, you, you terrorize everybody? And so and what does that do? It just pushes it underground? Yeah, I mean, just like when you have building permits that are too difficult to understand or follow, or a permitting system, it pushes it underground? And so for sure, so, you know, how much are you accomplishing? And, and they stay with these very stubbornly, right? Because it’s, again, there’s a lot of face saving, you know, aspect to it. And it’s like, oh, no, no, the city’s the authority. And so, I can tell you, because I’ve seen it happen, cities would rather have an ordinance passed. And that makes them look good politically, regardless of whether they’re going to enforce it or not, I mean, knowing that they don’t have the capacity to enforce it, or even the interest of enforcing it. But they’ll pass these ordinances, really just a liquid politically, and, and not think about the message they’re sending, or the effects down the road. And the expectations they set.
Greg Owens 37:18
Right. And so within your book here, you kind of start setting up a framework of what cities can start to consider to sort of fix this situation. And I guess, is these these brief? It’s unbelievably in my mind so complicated, like just getting the what is the job main job of a city? Right, like, like this, the what is the main functions that they should be doing? And sort of like, maybe streamlining it a bit, which sounds a little bit libertarian in some ways, right. Like, which that also gets into politics and all that kind of stuff. And like, we want these sort of essential things to work really well. Right. Right. The city needs only need the city to manage certain things like the roads, like utilities like Cleese force, right, which is a whole nother that one I don’t know if we can start to discuss it here. But but a small town here that has a police force, right, that’s a big consideration. You know, it’s interesting, I we just had a man stolen. One of my vans were stolen on a street in Santa fell in the canal. And they came in with like five cars. And they were stealing catalytic converters up and down the street. Oh, wow. And then they and they and then they stole our van to take it to another apartment complex and stole more catalytic converters and left our van. They’re great. So we got our van back, which is great. Because it’s a Painting Contractors van. It’s not worth anything. And they stole more cars from that. Apartment Complex, is what it appears to have happened. I don’t maybe it did just one for a joy ride. But who wants to joy ride in a painting van? Right. That’s not fun. I can think, but I was talking to the police officer of Sandra fell. And I was I was saying no. Hey, you know, when I talk to people about this, and when I get the feeling from you guys that you don’t really, like it’s so overwhelming that you don’t, you’re not going to be able to do anything about it, right? Because there’s video of these guys and all this stuff. And he’s like, No, it’s it’s it’s not that we don’t care. Right is that’s what you’re alluding to. It’s that we do care I do. I do want to capture these guys. It’s just that there’s so much of it going on. There’s so much video to kind of watch. There’s not much we can get off of it right because you can hardly you can’t really see these doing this. The license plates are all switched out so you’re not really going to get a good description of the cars. And then when they’re not allowed to pursue the cars anyway. Right, which I didn’t know this, maybe you knew this, but police officers are not allowed to go. Like in pursuit of something, unless it’s like, a really sort of serious felony.
Mark Moses 40:11
Oh, right. Yeah, I think and that’s a policy decision that I made department by department. But where, whereas considered a potential high risk, I mean, they don’t want to go running into a pedestrian chasing things.
Greg Owens 40:26
And it makes sense. Like, where’s the where’s the nice, they have to draw a line on somewhere, right? Like, because I get it, they’re trying to do things safe. But it’s, it’s also complicated, right? So you start to set this up of like, when you if you go into a city, and they’re asking for your help is, you do this kind of as a consulting or you do help cities. And a lot of ways and a lot of reasons you wrote this book was for that was to be able to try to bring awareness to the problem, and awareness to how to fix the problem. And so it looks to me like there needs to be like this in your book that you talk about sort of almost like setting up a value structure to the city. And along with their mission, like what is their primary?
Mark Moses 41:10
Defining what all that is? Yeah. And it’s really about? Well, it relates to how cities operate. I think it also relates to the expectations of the community. Because again, I think some members of the community, contribute to the scope creep. And again, I get it for you, like you pay taxes, you want to get something out of it. And so you squeeze the city to do more.
Greg Owens 41:38
Do I remember, I remember, Mill Valley here had a big push by one of the mayor’s back a few years ago to re do all the staircase, all the pedestrian staircases, right, yeah. Which we have a lot. It’s a beautiful, right. It’s amazing, you can walk all the way through neighborhood through neighborhood on these staircases, you know, in path.
Mark Moses 41:59
And so my, the point I really make in the book is we’ve created an extremely complex organization. I mean, think about just how many different things a city is supposed to be good at, right? Your your land use issues, and then police thing and fire. And some of these are different from city to city, because there may be a special fire district or something. But but you’re still somebody still interacting with that district and representing the city in that
Greg Owens 42:36
regard. Oh, for us and water water con conference, you know, yeah. Conservation, right. Yeah, the big, it’s a big deal. And in sewer treatment, right.
Mark Moses 42:45
And so you’ve got all these technical specialties going on under one roof. And so I say, first of all, that’s, that’s pretty much an insurmountable challenge, right there to have that many diverse technical areas under one roof. And then think about it, it’s like, the council members don’t have to have any particular expertise or background in these areas. Not that you should have to have special expertise to get elected. But the point is, we’ve we’ve put all these areas under a local structure. And it’s in a very complex world. And so part of my point, in terms of, you know, how to get out of this is recognizing a couple things. You cannot administer or budget for an amorphous organization, if the organization is just undefined and is just going to be, you know, we’ll know that way. When we see it will define it day to day, you, you cannot run that as an administrator, and you cannot budget for it as a finance person, you’re left just juggling is what you’re left with.
Greg Owens 44:03
So it’s the answer, like you’re saying is really sort of define the responsibilities.
Mark Moses 44:08
Yeah. And, and, and delimit the activity because it can’t be a fluid. Again, it’s the scope creep, that is the killer. And when I say the killer, I mean administratively and financially. If, if you’re just gonna, if everyone’s got a wildcard out there, if you just can’t operate the organization effectively, and we’re looking at the reason we’re seeing the result of that. In terms of just the, the general turmoil, and and so that’s, that’s something that I think, get your current council members, future council members, and the people that elect them, and the people that set the expectations For the scope of their cities activity, need to think about these things. We and a lot of the problems we have, were, are worse than the problems we were trying to. I give a couple examples in the book of this, but are worse than the problems we’re trying to solve? I mean, I mean, one example is with the homelessness, you got, you know, homelessness kind of issue percolating. And then, you know, basically cities from gasoline on that, in terms of what they’ve done through their approaches.
Greg Owens 45:40
Yeah, especially some of the cities here on the west coast, from what I’ve seen. And, you know, it’s interesting, each city is taking a different a different direction in it, but you look at someplace like Portland there, when I was up there, back in October, there downtown Portland area, which is a beautiful city with the rivers and the mountains, and everything around, it was just overwhelmed with homeless like it was they were barbecuing on the streets there. They have fire pits on the streets, they, they have tables and chairs and TV sets, and lots and lots of tents, like, up and down the streets in downtown Portland. And it was, and it’s it appears to me that it became more they did. It was to like they gate they caved in too many, too many issues of allowing things to sort of happen. And now it’s more like you just said like, like they’re like, Okay, they had good, they had good intentions. But then, you know, it’s gotten out of control in a way. Right.
Mark Moses 46:47
And part of it is it’s almost like there’s a political inability to say no, once these expectations are set. And so the I mean, in 30 years, I’ve only heard the question, should we be doing this? Is this really within the proper scope of our of our charge? I mean, I, I’ve heard that a couple of times in 30 years. And and, you know, that should be the first question answer asked by everyone on the board or the council, before taking on something. I mean, you know, you couldn’t you can’t operate a business. If you’re indiscriminate about, you know, oh, should we should we bid on this contract? Yeah, I know, that’s a interior design contract. But what the heck, it’s a contract. I mean, if you go chasing everything that’s out there, and you don’t limit yourself to women, I’ve run a painting business. I don’t run an interior design business. But and you want to see that play out in, in the area of grants. Because there’s a whole industry of, you know, you’ve got all these federal grants out there state grants. And so cities start chasing grants because it’s, quote, free money. And so now, if it’s almost like if you, you know, spent, you know, when you’re not at work, you know, your evenings and weekends, you know, applying for sweeps, you know, or something like,
Greg Owens 48:25
I never thought of grants that way, because you think of it as a good thing, right? Here’s a gap, and they’re looking for maybe it’s a couple million dollars to solve a homeless issue or something like that. And I city will say like, okay, great. I’m applying for it. We got it. Now, we’re going to take our bureaucracy that’s already struggling, and add more bureaucracy, exactly four layers, Brian, layers of complexity to now manage and deal with this new thing.
Mark Moses 48:52
Exactly, exactly. And so that compounds, what is already a complex situation, having to manage all these multi multi disciplinary areas that are extremely complex, with a with a lay Board, who, you know, is, is limited into what they can do. And they’re limited by this another facet of it. They’re limited by the public process. I mean, think if you had to run thick if you merge with this city and quarter Madera on your painting business, and now it’s like, oh, you lost an employee. Great. Well, now they’ve got to go through, you know, the city hiring process to get hired and, you know, get cleared through all that. And oh, by the way, you know, you didn’t do three bids on the last. I know you’re desperate for paint, because you got to finish these jobs. But, but we need three bids, and we have to really show that we, you know, really covered everything with our bids and and so and you’re But I can’t work, I need my painting. Right? And but you’re you’re tied into a bureaucratic process that is set up for other purposes. Right? Not about, you know, not a painting service. And that’s what happens in these various areas where a bureaucracy set up to be the Vienna City Hall to be the central authority for legislation and enforcement is now in all these businesses. And when I say businesses, I mean charitable activities and, and real businesses trying to operate. And so that’s, and that’s kind of going back to that’s why I cringe when people come in and say, oh, you know, the city should take this over. And it’s like, you know, that may sound good to you from a narrow perspective. But if you knew how, what was going on in the inside, you would see how this is just adding another straw to the to the camel’s back here.
Greg Owens 51:06
It really reminds me of watching Steve Jobs in Cupertino, like he so he goes in front of the city of Cupertino is planning department to build a new, the new complex if you wanted for Apple, right, let’s think big saucer shaped building and add this on video. And it’s great, because you can see this sort of city at work a little bit in Cupertino. And they start making sort of more and more demands of Steve Jobs, right. Like they’re like, well, we’d like to see maybe this and why else can and he’s like, how hold up. I I’m, I’m choosing to stay in Cupertino. I don’t have to. Right, I could move apple. But I like Cupertino, I want to stay here we can easily we if we need to, we’ll move out well move Apple Computer. And then you watch every like council member like just like, like, oh shit, we could lose apple. Because as you know, tremendous revenue city. And they because they were asking him they’re like, hey, so how about you put in like, you know, what, if you put in like wireless internet for us for Cupertino. And he’s like, No, I think the city should do that. But it’s wrong. Even he was looking at it in the wrong light that the city is not the good people the right tool for the job to implement a wireless service for its citizens to have internet, right? Because that’s exactly, they wouldn’t they wouldn’t do it in a way that makes it would be, you know, high speed, easy connectivity. Customer great customer service, you know, that’s
Mark Moses 52:46
where the company’s well, and they wouldn’t do it with the next generation of technology in mind.
Greg Owens 52:51
Right. And they wouldn’t have upgrades built into it for the future, because there’s other other competing products out there. Right. Exactly. Yeah, you know, it’s, gosh, it’s so complex, I wanted to get into a little bit, because you because once you define, like the scope, like is a big part of it with a city like roar, and then limiting their scope and saying, here’s, here’s what we really need to focus on based on the amount of money we got coming in, then then you had, so then you had budgeting for that scope, as a big part of your book. Exactly. And budgeting process, speak, speak a bit about like the budgeting that happens most of the time right now. Versus like this budgeting for the scope. Yeah,
Mark Moses 53:35
the the traditional model is give gives the impression that budgeting is some kind of financial planning process and decision making process. But it’s better described as simply accounting for all of the commitments that have already been made. And so by the time the, quote, budget season begins, by the time you start preparing the budget, you’re you’re accounting for your labor agreement, your contract agreements, the things that have been already politically promised in
Greg Owens 54:11
and said, it’s like, that’s like, but like, Yeah, so like, if, if there’s contracts already out there for fixing all the roads, you’re budgeting for that’s in that way.
Mark Moses 54:21
It’s not too different from I mean, these parallels don’t always work. But in this case, it’s not too different from a household situation where, you know, preparing your budget, it’s like, you’re not doing it from zero. It’s like, you know, you got your rent or your mortgage, right. Got your cell phone bill. You’ve got your maybe credit
Greg Owens 54:43
card, you might might have card debt from exactly from somebody else who spent and bought new couches like exactly
Mark Moses 54:50
exact year ago, right. Yeah, exactly. And so so the point is, you’re not budgeting in the sense that you’re really planning your Can Read counting mostly for commitments that are already in progress. And so you can, you can call it the beginning of your budget year. But it’s it. Again, it’s better described as accounting for what’s already there than a real planning process.
Greg Owens 55:16
And like a household that it could very well be that 80% of the money is already allocated for exactly no way out of it.
Mark Moses 55:26
Exactly. And in the case of cities, in my experience, it’s more like, you know, 95 plus percent of the resources have already disolved
Greg Owens 55:38
allocated already decided on this is ongoing payments that we make.
Mark Moses 55:44
And so you’re just dealing on the margin. And, and to that extent, get to, then everyone’s got an idea for how the money should be spent on the margins. And that’s where a lot of the discussion takes place. So here’s what the difference is right? As a, you know, with your own personal finances, you can take a step back and say, Hey, this isn’t working, I’m not saving for the future, I want to retire someday, I’ve got to rethink all of this, maybe I need to move, maybe I need to downsize, maybe I need to change my consumer habits a bit. And so you can make those kinds of adjustments. When you have, you know, when you have the Personal Will, cities never really get in that kind of frame of mind there. They just continue with these cycles of account for what’s already committed, go out and make more commitments next year account for what’s been committed, go out and make more commitment. And that’s really the cycle. And another thing we’re seeing is that under financial pressure, the whole structure is set up much better to add things than to take them away, right? Because adding things is, you know, that’s where you get the ribbon cutting, that’s where you get the excitement. I think that’s how
Greg Owens 57:07
you get reelected. Exactly. You don’t get reelected by being boring and doing the same thing that was done last year.
Mark Moses 57:12
Exactly. So but think about it, there’s boring aspects of your business, if you had to put your business through that kind of filter, where you can only do new things, you can never do that stuff that that, you know, is that solid pay the rent stuff, even though it’s not very exciting. If you if you couldn’t nurture that, would you be right? And so that’s where our cities are they can’t they it’s boring to solvable problem, and to re enter to deal with these legacy issues.
Greg Owens 57:47
There’s a there’s an interesting thing, too, is you mentioned it earlier. And that we know the way so like I can sort of budget based on last year for my company, saying like, Well, we did X in revenue, I’m expecting us to grow by 10 or 15%. So we’re going to be at about here, right in new revenue coming in. And then based on that, we added add some more overhead and things like that. And then here’s what here’s, here’s what we’ll get. We’re hoping to have profit wise, but we might actually not be as profitable because it’s, uh, you know, we’re, we’re trying to grow a company. Right? Well, and when it comes to like a city, they’re getting their money primarily from three places, I think. Right. Like, it’s like, it’s it’s property taxes for a lot of services. It’s it’s sales taxes from a lot of services fees. That’s third one, right? These are all the different types of fees we have to pay for whatever it is we’re paying for building department fees, or, or there is some trickle down from state to the city level,
Mark Moses 58:58
I would think. Right. Mainly Yeah, the the state Yeah. And actually the way things have been negotiated in the past around property taxes and
Greg Owens 59:14
the right to that and that’s still just property tax money. That’s not That’s not say like, so when I pay the state income, income tax, not much of that money is coming down to this anymore. No, no, that’s just that stays at the state level so that he doesn’t really see that
Mark Moses 59:33
way. The main thing you see that you write a check for is your is your property tax because
Greg Owens 59:38
property taxes that’s a fixed amount, they know basically where that number is going to come in fluctuating a little bit based on how sales and that kind of thing. Um, or is it
Mark Moses 59:49
really Marin County? Yes, in in a developing city. You can have, you can have a fair amount of growth in that area.
Greg Owens 59:57
You have the VJ, a city like Spark In Nevada, yeah, I mean, they’re seeing a bunch of growth. They can they don’t know what that number is going to be because it’s going up. That’s right. They’re gonna have to project that. Yeah, they can project it because they know what, what’s under construction right now and how housing sales are, but it’s that’s a projection.
Mark Moses 1:00:16
Yes, it’s a projection because somebody can, you know, somebody can do the planning takeout permit until they really break down and execute if the land isn’t really improved.
Greg Owens 1:00:29
And then the sales tax for like the city of Mill Valley here that’s predict that’s somewhat predictable. Because it’s not massively
Mark Moses 1:00:39
that I can’t say no value is predictable, I think, where you have, if you have an auto dealership, it becomes less predictable. And
Greg Owens 1:00:49
like Sandra, shopping mall, so Sandra fell, it’s less predictable, because they have malls, it’s a bigger city, they have a bunch of autos. So that’s all based on what’s happening economy wise. Right. Right. Sausalito to I would think is interesting, because they got tourist influx of money constantly coming in. But not in the last couple years of COVID. Right, like all of a sudden that’s got to have significant changes to their budget.
Mark Moses 1:01:16
You’re right, man. Yeah. So and think about though, none of these things we mentioned here relate to the productivity of the police force, or firefighters or, or planning department, none of it are the demands on them. Yeah, this is not and this is what a lot of people come in to become council members with some business experience. And they’re used to running businesses, and they’re used to that relationship between the revenues and the expenditures. But all of these sources of revenue for the city have no bearing or reflection, or counterpart in the in the productivity of the staff, or the deployment of the staff. You can, in fact, a good example is with with fire, right during the lockdown, there was nobody on the road, right? And yet, fire stations that were justified because of midday traffic, and how long it takes to get across town, you know, at four o’clock or five o’clock PM, they didn’t say, Oh, I guess these stations aren’t needed during the lockdown. Because again, their justification was only because of traffic considerations and response time considerations. That’s the only, you know, reason that you know that they were built right. And so no to those close down. No, they stayed open. 24/7 365. Right. So you know that. So that’s a good example of how it’s the legacy model of deploying firefighters and they’re in the labor agreements that drives the deployment, not, you know, the demand. And right
Greg Owens 1:03:18
so same thing with the city of San Francisco or Sausalito, there, the demand of of like, extra people for police force and ticketing, parking and all that kind of stuff. Because you have all this people for the last couple of years, as you know, it’s been a ghost town down there in some ways. I mean, it’s picking up now but you know, Fisherman’s Wharf has been a ghost town and the and, and Sausalito there, right. Exactly. Yeah. Same same consideration. Wow. And things are huge. And there’s no way they can move that fast. Right? Because of all these because of all the and and who wants to fire you know, Bob wants to lay off Bob at the fire department has been here 30 years because it slowed down a little bit. Try. Exactly,
Mark Moses 1:03:59
exactly. Yeah. Man. It’s,
Greg Owens 1:04:02
I like how you ended with hope go?
Mark Moses 1:04:05
Well, you know, I’m, I’m critical of a lot of things cities have done in the way they’ve addressed their problems. But the I think one of the problems that I see is, and I’ve seen this over the years from people that come in, and they’re upset with the way the city is doing things, and, and they and their right to be upset. I sympathize with that. But I also have noticed that they’re not effective, because they if they can’t articulate, okay, what should the city do? What is a positive step? What’s a positive vision of, of how cities should should adjust their their focus? And so, I really worked hard to do that in the book where it’s not just bashing city hall or inefficiencies or incompetence? Because I think the the issue goes deeper than that. And you’re not going to solve it as just an issue of incompetence, or inefficiency.
Greg Owens 1:05:14
Yeah, I really liked that, as I was reading, and I really liked that it opened my eyes to the complexities and considerations, and that you can’t look, I can’t look at the city as a business, you’d like to, you’d like to be holistic that way. But it’s, it’s just as you said, there’s just too many, its job is covering too many very complex industries,
Mark Moses 1:05:40
right. And so you need different kinds of tool you don’t need, you don’t need a classic turnaround specialist of the variety that you would hire to turn around a business. And you need a different kind of appreciation for, for what the organization is, why it’s there. And, and, and a real discipline on why it needs to be delivered about its scope, so that it can be successful in into filling in requirements. Yeah,
Greg Owens 1:06:15
this is, this is crazy, we’ve spent a bit of time on this. And I’m really surprised this is really fun to kind of get to know you at this level Mark and, and to kind of, you know, see this different world and have a different, you know, all of you that that definitely view the city differently as I walk into their buildings after.
Mark Moses 1:06:35
And that’s really one of the things I do with the book, because for reasons we could get into in another conversation, you know, X Finance Directors don’t write books. And the few books that are out there are more like worse stories, as opposed to things that are really trying to help people understand what’s going on in City Hall. And I’ll just say myself, it’s like, I had no, I thought it was boring, I had no appreciation for anything that went on in a municipal utility or a city until I got in there. And so it’s something that you’re not going to really understand how it works. Even with all the public meetings and public information, you won’t really get this perspective, even council members, seasoned council members, just by their actions, I can tell that they really don’t get how the city works. I mean, they just have these expectations that are just way off from the way things really work in the city. So this is an attempt to put some of that out there. Improve the level of discussion, I hope and your listeners. I mean, they’re busy people. But I would encourage them to where they can have an influence. And where these do issues do come up in conversation. They think about, you know, Hey, what is going on with the city? And what am I paying? And what am I getting? And because I think it’s, uh, you know, it’s easy to say, Oh, I’m a homeowner. And yeah, this latest policy is gonna, you know, help me maintain my value. But how much of a value is that when, you know, your kids or nieces or nephews can afford to live in, you know, the same area they grew up? Or, you know, how big an advantage is it if you’re, your favorite restaurant in town can’t keep the health because the area, no one can afford to live here and work in the service industry. So I think, you know, it’s easy to get busy and pass this off. And it’s easy to justify it as boring. But it’s, it is a growing issue. And I think if you look at it at all, it’s it’s a significant one. So I think what I’m trying to do with this book is make it a must read for city council members, and anybody who is interested. So I’m not trying to convince anybody who’s busy to all of a sudden drop what they’re doing and read this. But I will throw out my website. Muni, finance guy.com. That’s Muni isn’t municipal Muni finance guy.com. And, you know, if you do know people that are interested, who are more active, pass this on to them, and I appreciate it.
Greg Owens 1:09:37
Yeah, I mean, I you know, it’s definitely it definitely made me aware of, of the complexities of what’s going on within my own city here and then the other cities where I won’t have the same knee jerk reaction anymore. Right to why did they do that and what rate you know what I mean? Like you hear this over, you know, Coffee all the time is like what the CEO has gotten themselves into, and how they screwed something up or something like that a lot of knee jerk reaction, a lot of people getting upset over how it’s being run, right. And I have a lot more compassion for what they’re up against, right? Because it’s a, it’s a complex, it’s a complex thing. And the fixes aren’t easy. But it’s definitely helped me be I think, be better a better citizen, right, like, in a way to just bring that awareness to it. And to bring that awareness to how to make changes. And I, I definitely will, I’ll send this book out to a few people I know that are sitting on councils, I’ll give it to, I run into the city council’s here in Mill Valley. And then I know a few people in other in, you know, in other parts of the county, and I’ll, I’ll send it to them. And yeah, and I highly recommend it to anybody that has to, if you’re doing any kind of work for the city to sort of get an understanding of why things take so long to make any get an approval, this is a helpful book to get a sort of better understanding of what that process could look like.
Mark Moses 1:11:06
Yeah, it’s, and other people have mentioned that, to me to people who sell to cities don’t understand why is it just takes on their minds? Yeah, sales process blows their minds? And so yeah, the better you can understand it, right? It’s kind of like, how like interest based negotiations, right, the better you can understand where everybody’s interested in what they’re really up to, the better you can navigate. And I, I think it’s the same issue here, if you can understand what it is, and what that really means in terms of what it can do and what it can’t do. You’ll you’ll be more effective in relating to
Greg Owens 1:11:46
Yeah, I think we, I think we did a bid for the ken field Fire Department nerf that was like three and a half years ago or something like that. And it’s just coming through now. Right? Every day, but now we have to raise the prices. Right? Right, right, because things have changed in the last three and a half years. But definitely there. And Mark just just sort of a wrap up a little bit. Because part of this podcast, like if if young people were people interested in making a difference, I could see this book being like really helpful if they want to, like, you know, start a career in, in working for cities are trying to make a difference. You see this a lot with, especially with the younger generation that they want to, they want to make a difference. They want to change things. This book seems really valuable for them to sort of get a sort of better understanding of the complexities and all the things that are involved in there.
Mark Moses 1:12:42
Yeah, and, and that’s another motivation of mine is, again, it’s the help make this thing that seems impenetrable, seems confusing, more understandable, more quickly. And so yeah. And I’ll tell you, that was a real, I’ve seen this, where, again, whether it’s from private industry, or sometimes from the federal government, I worked with the city manager came from a federal agency, and all of a sudden, he’s working for a small city. And he was just baffled. He was so confused. It was kind of like, where’s the structure? You know, it’s like, when you’re in a federal agency, you know, the culture might be good or bad or healthy or poisonous. But, but you know, what that agency is doing right, their structure there. But you go into, especially small cities, larger cities kind of have to create some structure just to survive and function at all. But, but small cities rarely have any real structure. And so to try to figure out what’s going on, and what drives it, and and where do you even start? Is, is is a real chore. And so yeah, so the book can help people who are new to the industry navigate it a little better than that’s, that’s another benefit.
Greg Owens 1:14:10
That’s great. Yeah, I think so. Absolutely. Because like you said, there’s not It’s not like there’s a whole lot of people in the Treasury Department of a city writing books about what’s going on and what they see in their experience. And you have just a wealth of experience about and not just one city, many different cities that you’ve actually been a part of. So
Mark Moses 1:14:30
that’s great. Yeah, thanks.
Greg Owens 1:14:33
Yeah. And if people wanted to get in touch with you personally, would, would LinkedIn be the one the best
Mark Moses 1:14:38
way they can find me on LinkedIn? Or you can go to Munifinanceguy.com has a link to my LinkedIn and also a way to reach out to me or, you know, I’m Mark@Munifinanceguy.com. You can just email directly But the book is just published. I’m in early stages here of the marketing. And so I’m really interested in feedback on what resonates with people what’s helpful. And so I can emphasize those points as I as I hit the road
Greg Owens 1:15:16
here. Yeah. And thank you so much for being on No, the first your first podcast, not your first podcast, but first podcast since the book came out first promotional podcast, original podcast for the new book. Yeah, I’m glad we were able to do that here Watching Paint Dry. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Right. Yeah, thank you.
Intro 1:15:41
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