[OpenSpending] Spending story: US city bankruptcies

Mon Sep 3 09:26:22 UTC 2012

You need to review the journalism on some of these stories.  The real
reason behind the financial problems are well hidden (behind
disinformation blaming it on teacher's salaries), and usually to do
with something similar to PFI -- vastly inflated payments and debts on
city assets.

Sometimes it's so well hidden that it takes an auditor put in charge
of the city six months to work it out.
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/31/160379247/inside-americas-most-indebted-city#more

One purpose of the open spending movement should be to establish
financial control systems where the flow and leaking of money can be
observed in realtime.  So it should be worth carefully reviewing and
discussing these cases from a technical standpoint to understand if
transparency could have revealed these problems at source or not.

Julian.

On 13 August 2012 12:14, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I've recently been digging into US city finances (especially in
> California) following the recent bankruptcy of several cities. I've
> started on a timeline (source spreadsheet [1]):
>
> <http://timeliner.reclinejs.com/?backend=gdocs&url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccckey=0Aon3JiuouxLUdDQ3QlJhOHJnS2x0NkxibUp1YnYwR1E%23gid=0#explorer>
>
> [1]: <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aon3JiuouxLUdDQ3QlJhOHJnS2x0NkxibUp1YnYwR1E#gid=0>
>
> I've started collecting notes and links in this accompanying
> "research" post (in progress!) (Note the hack embed of the timeline!
> Better embedding coming soon):
>
> <http://notebook.okfn.org/2012/08/05/spending-story-california-city-bankruptcies/>
>
> One quote for me stands out (this is regarding the city of Stockton
> (the largest city in the US since Cleveland in 1979 to file for
> Bankruptcy):
>
> <quote>
> Since FY08-09, the City has been forced through lack of funds to
> reduce sworn General Fund Police staffing by 25%, Fire staffing by 30%
> and all other staffing by 43%. Programs and services have been reduced
> to minimum – or below minimum – levels. Sworn Police staffing per
> 1,000 residents has dropped from a high of 1.52 per 1,000 residents in
> 2005 to 1.16 currently, and in the face of a rising local crime rate.
> While violent crime rates dropped 5.5% nationwide in 2010, they were
> up in Stockton, which ranked 10th in the U.S. with 13.81 violent
> crimes per 1,000 residents.
> </quote>
>
> Collaboration and suggestions warmly welcome!
>
> Regards,
>
> Rufus
>
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