Voice of OC — Irvine City Council Doubles Personal Budgets, Opening Questions on Funding and Accountability
Voice of OC — Irvine City Council members decided to double their personal office budgets and remove nearly all safeguards on how they spend that money in a narrow 3-2 vote last night.
To read the article click, Irvine City Council Doubles Personal Budgets, Opening Questions on Funding and Accountability.
1 Comments
Susan Sayre
May 26, 2021 at 10:50 amThe Council Member Executive Assistant Pay increase authorization by the City Council raises a number of questions:
1. Stated purpose for the pay increase is to pay for professional quality executive services: Council members have executive assistant services now so is there not a better use for the $475,000 ($75 K) each council member?
2. The Pay increase is to come from Great Park Sponsorship Program funds which, when program was authorized was projected to have an annual income of between $20K and $30K. The Great Park Sponsorship funds thus will not pay for the pay increase. What is going to fund the rest of the executive assistant pay?
3. What is going to fund the Great Park venues, services, maintenance costs, etc.? According to the Great Park Sponsorship Program documents from Great Park Board Meeting dated 10/22/2019, the Great Park Sponsorship Program funds were to create an income stream for both the City and the Great Park.
4. Is there a jurisdiction and approval process issue? As the Great Park Sponsorship Funds were to provide an income stream to both the city and the Great Park, the resolution should have been approved by the Great Park Board of Directors, but likely would not have gone to the Finance Commission for approval, AND by the City Council, but should first have been approved by the Finance Commission before being voted on by the City Council. Thus it appears that this resolution was called for and passed in violation of the approval procedure process.
5. Given the history of an alleged violation of the Council Executive Assistant funds, there needs to be a provision barring use of the Executive Assistant services budget for personal or campaign costs and services, a provision for oversight of the expenditure of the Executive Assistant services budget expenditures and there needs to be designated consequences for violation of these provisions for all involved in the violation including the council member, executive assistants and the entities providing the budget oversight services
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