By Julie Akins
Mayor About Town

When I got a call from Ashland’s City Manager last week informing me we had an emergency to address, I was grateful that he called. There’s nothing worse than discovering a problem after the fact. But I was also confused. Mr. Lessard had the unenviable task of telling me that we needed a new pumper fire engine and that it wasn’t budgeted.

How could that be?

Apparently in 2014 the decision was made not to set aside money for replacement vehicles. I don’t know who made the decision and I’m not sure why, but in the present day, what we needed to do was find the money, some $700,000 in a contingency fund to buy a new truck right away.

It was a huge priority and came to us as an emergency. Council acted and the truck was ordered by our fire chief.

But here’s the thing: roughly every month the city is finding itself dealing with an unforeseen situation involving budgeting.

No one can tell us how we got here because many of these past decisions defy traditional financial tracking, standard procedure and transparent governance. I can feel the ire of some of my colleagues in reading this, but the fact is I can count literally dozens of times where this has been said in public meetings. It’s not about “blaming,” “second guessing” or being unkind. I’m not here to cast aspersions or offer judgment but I am here to say we need a map if we’re to have any idea where we’re going.

It’s simply not okay to keep bracing for the next unforeseen calamity because we don’t know where the financial trip wires are buried.

And we don’t know because we have not had clear and thorough research on how we got here, what past financial decisions were made that affect us now and what we can do to make sure we don’t drive off a financial cliff. What we need is a clear and thorough audit of the past seven years so we can figure out how to move forward. Otherwise, we’ll keep bumping along and dealing with disasters which need immediate solutions.

I’m remembering my sixth grade science teacher: “A failure to plan is a plan to fail.”

Let’s face it, we need to get our financial map in order once and for all to plan for the future.

Here’s an example:

At one time the City of Ashland had about $40,000 in reserve funds, that’s for a roughly 120 million dollar annual budget. I won’t lie, when I heard that, I had to turn my face away because it made me actually cry. How could our city be left stranded like that?

I don’t think we need to fight about this. It’s math. It’s fact. We have a city impacted by inflation, just like you and me, and we have a city which needs to cover the safety of 21,138 persons, plus pets, plus our natural environment. To do that we need a clear understanding of past practices and finances. We need our current management to be able to reconcile it and move us forward to not only handle one emergency after another but to work with all of us to reimagine our city within the challenges we face.

Now look, if I read something like this a decade ago before I fully engaged in city functions, I would have found it boring and probably not relevant. But when we are in fire season, when we have a fire breaking out in Lithia Park, when we have thousands sleepless for fear of their community burning, we don’t want a fire department not fully stocked with the equipment they need. We also don’t want that for any of our departments or people.

Our goal is to find our hard earned money spent on things that keep us safe and make us proud of our community.

When it comes to money, the most important thing is value. Are Ashland residents getting what they pay for? Is the money being spent wisely to ensure the best quality of life our city can offer? Is it clear what our priorities are and do we spend the people’s money in accordance? These are the real questions and they won’t be answered until we know exactly where the money is, where it was spent, why it was spent and how we can plan better for the future.

So here’s my ask: let’s get that research done, let’s prepare a sensible and transparent budget and accounting system that shows managers, employees and the community exactly where we are and then let’s budget according to our priorities.

Once we do that, we can start restoring our city to what we want it to be, a happy and safe place with cool things to do and a community that can trust and respect its own government.

Julie Akins is the Mayor of Ashland