Riff Raff: Recalculating

The firing of Fort Smith’s sanitation boss and the subsequent “discovery” of savings in the sanitation budget once again require us to compare what we hear from city officials to what we see.

This is not a defense of Baridi Nhokheli, the recently fired director of the Department of Sanitation. He can handle his own defense, and if that becomes a legal challenge then we may learn more about the valid and/or invalid reasons for his firing.

However, the direct and indirect procedures related to the firing provide a few things to consider about our city government, with the first being the difference in firing offenses.

The department boss who has had employees get hand jobs from prostitutes, had a top training officer sexually harass a rookie employee, has been unable to hire a black officer in more than 10 years, and has kept the city’s legal team busy with whistleblower and discrimination lawsuits (just to name a few stumbles) remains employed.

Over the past few decades the city has spent millions to update the water and sewer system. Then we learn that maybe we didn’t spend the money in the right places and are now hit with a federal order to fix the system that is estimated to cost the city $480 million. The guy in charge of this department also surprises the Board of Directors with multi-million dollar projects after being repeatedly encouraged to not do that. He remains employed.

The department boss who spent a lot of his own money for several years to portray legendary U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves and helped raise thousands of dollars for a Reeves statue in downtown Fort Smith, but was allegedly insubordinate, allegedly misused city property and may have overspent a few thousand dollars, well, that guy is sent packing.

Let’s summarize: The department heads who brought us prostitutes, sexual harassment, lawsuits, an almost half-a-billion dollar federal order, and still deliver multi-million dollar contract surprises remain city employees. The department head who brought us nothing anywhere near those things in terms of costs and soiled reputation has been fired.

The point is not that any of the above persons should or should not remain a city employee. The point is the difference in what constitutes grounds for dismissal. Another lesson learned is that it’s better to be a white male and connected than not – although assurances have been given that color was not a factor when the city’s only black department head ever was also the first department head to be fired in a long, long time.

A few weeks after the sanitation director was dismissed by the city’s acting city administrator, said acting city administrator encouraged the head of the parks department to review sanitation department operations. What this review found (so far) is that the sanitation department budget had more than $650,000 in unnecessary expenses. This quick discovery of budget savings is interesting on two levels.

The first is the speed. Within just a few weeks city employees from another department were able to find ways to cut the sanitation budget by around 5%. Compare this to the more than six months of often heated budget discussions last year in which Fort Smith Directors were repeatedly told by the city administrator, the now acting city administrator and other top city employees that budgets for all departments were tight and any cuts near 3% could damn near cripple the city.

The other thing to consider about the newfound savings is that the bigger line items in the budget reduction – hiring more people to reduce overtime pay, and ending use of a temp agency – were things the now fired sanitation department director wanted to do but was not allowed to do. It’s also possible that the now fired sanitation department director wanted to submit lower numbers in some of the line items, but was encouraged otherwise.

It also will be interesting to see if the maintenance budget reduction is wise policy in the long run. It’s easy to move forward a maintenance schedule to post short-term gains. It’s difficult to know now the future costs to repair or replace equipment not adequately serviced.

Yet another note on the budget “savings” is that they are now just savings on paper, and the savings do not come with a comparison of how various sanitation budget line items came in under or over budget in previous years.

But indepth questions from the Board about the sanitation budget were not necessary. Or the goal. The more than $650,000 number was intended to be a headline grabber and was more than enough in many circles to justify Nkokheli’s firing. The other lesson learned is that when concerned about the substance of initial reasons for firing a person, it’s important to find more substance. And fast.

Have said it before and will say it again: From water true ups to legal fees to water park costs to expensive federal orders (just to name a few previous and ongoing management miscues), Fort Smith citizens have endured enough surprises from city officials when it comes to management and money claims.

Stuff’s not adding up on my city hall calculator. Hasn’t for some time. Am sure Kind Reader will let me know if it’s time for a new calculator or a new city hall.