Dear Editor,
Per the actual records:
Information in The Yazoo Herald quotes aldermen stating that there has been an increase in meetings in Yazoo City. One quote actually numbers. We will further analyze these statements looking back into years before this term. However, fact checking does not bear out the numbers that were quoted. The records are easy to research now as they are digital.
The Board of Mayor & Aldermen officially holds 26 board meetings per annum. And the board attends some necessary special call meetings for personnel, budget and other sessions such as proposal reviews, claims docket and selecting suppliers. Some are grant related.
During budget season several meetings are held for budget presentations. The board has stated they cannot stay in meetings to hear all department heads in one session. So it is broken into more than one session Special meetings are held for various reasons generally for no longer than 30 minutes. The record bears this out. Only budget meetings, proposals after RFP and or Summer Youth hiring or potential personnel interviews have been longer. The board is responsible for hiring and thus has participated in some interview sessions. Yazoo City has received some grants and the board has participated in required sessions related to these grants.
However, in no year has there been an average of more than 3.75 meetings. Again, this can be found in City record and the record does not bear out the numbers that were quoted.
Current Term meeting Stats reviewed:
2014 - Board averaged 3 meetings per month of which 4 special calls were budget related.
2015 - Board averaged 3.08 meetings per month of which 3 were Budget related and 2 summer Youth hiring.
2016 - Board averaged 3.7 meetings per month of which 7 were budget related and 2 Summer Youth and 1 health related emergency.
2017 - Board Average is currently after 8 months of the year 3.25 meetings. 2 of which were budget related, 1 Summer Youth, 3 grant, 2 garbage
Further, statistically, analysis can be provided to include hours per meeting averaged, time of day of meetings, etc. Analysis of average number of meetings can go back to many, many years before this administration. It is also possible to analyze re-do and effectiveness of governmental actions based on redo and decision making relative to operations, and financial management and other data points.
By the way the approved budget is a deficit budget. This probably will be seen when the budget is published. Words stated are not always fact.
Now, will the operations departments manage to budget in its daily management Yes, as has been done over the last immediate years. Should emergency situations occur, the board as always will be informed and brought in for decision making – which is its role.
Data provides facts versus conjecture or personal thoughts. Certain members of the board voted for increases. According to their role it is within their power to do so for whatever reasons chosen. Data however is real and cannot be made up to satisfy these reasons.
The City of Yazoo City will manage day to day within approved budget. As has been the case, the Mayor does the work daily to assure this with no assistance or knowledge provided from elsewhere. The Mayor has provided all annual Yazoo City revenue stream information to the Alderman to assure the legislative body is completely knowledgeable of Yazoo City year over year annual income.
Again, further data analysis will reveal any year over year increase in meetings. However, one wonders if potentially not having special call meetings caused the city to have the host of problems from which it suffered in the past. We will determine via a quick analytical review. It may be anecdotal however because it is difficult to determine if skill, inertia or many other elements may not have played an issue in the management of Yazoo City.
More to come on Yazoo City employment numbers and benchmarks for incomes.
Thank you,
Mayor Diane Delaware
