The answer, sadly, is apparently not, at least not by themselves. The five good men of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors are finding that the numbers simply don’t add up. They are spending millions more than they take in and find themselves digging into the piggy bank to make up the difference. So they relinquished their responsibility and capitulated to an outside consulting firm to make the budget numbers add up.
Do you feel their pain? No? Well, how about this: The consultant they hired to save money cost us $761,600. And that was merely for a report. We paid them $15.7 million to implement their own recommendations. Maybe county management couldn’t read or understand the report so they could take action on their own.
Feel the pain yet? Here’s the other shoe: The first report only covered the Sheriff’s Department, District Attorney’s Office, Probation Department, and Public Defender’s Office. Now our consultant is getting another $2.7 million to study other departments. Hold on to your wallets, folks, this is only for a report. If the first “study” was any indication, implementation for their “recommendations” could cost $60 million (about 20 times the cost of the report).
You know, I checked the records, and for a mere $387,642.45 (in 2014), we pay a Chief Executive Officer to actually manage the business of the county. Have we wasted that money? While Riverside County doesn’t actually have a Chief Financial Officer, it does have an Auditor, who receives $189,353.92 (again, in 2014). It appears that the Board of Supervisors doesn’t believe the county bean counters and managers can solve the budget problem. So, what exactly are we paying them to do?
In a county where the median family income is around $60,000 a year, we find that we are ponying up for 3,285 county employees that earn over $100,000. Even the dog catcher makes $298,856.18 a year! Whoa, am I in the wrong business! And I’m not even into the pension mess, but that’s a whole other story.
Okay, let me just zoom in on one department, say, the county Information Technology Department. I know it has taken a beating in the past years for doing stupid stuff, but let’s just take a fresh look.
The IT department has 461 employees, and most are making well over $100,000 a year. That alone is a hefty chunk of change, but when you look at the cost of IT facilities and buying and maintaining all the hi-tech gadgets the county seems to need we are looking at an astronomical chunk of change.
I get it. The lifespan of a hi-tech device these days in measured in portions of a year if not months. Then there are updates and new software. It all costs money… lots of money, as any of us owning these devilish devices, can attest to. But is it always necessary to have the latest-and-greatest? My cell phone is an old flip-phone – well over 10 years old – that, unbelievably, lets me communicate with anyone quite nicely. I’ve looked at those new smart phones, but it seems there is always a newer, better, one coming out and all you need to do is open your wallet. But all I really need is a phone. I have cameras and computers to do that other stuff.
Okay, yes, there are ways the county could save money. But If I can point out just a few ways, why would the county need a high-priced consulting firm to point out the obvious? Even still, why can’t those we pay enormous salaries figure this out by themselves? I guess maybe I should be in the consulting business.
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