Remember Cauthen's $2.50/gallon Gas?

While pumping gas recently at $3.75 or so a gallon, I happened to recall that a few short months ago, Wayne Cauthen submitted a budget assuming gas would be available for $2.50 a gallon. Even at the time he submitted the budget, you couldn't find it for under $2.80.

I hope the City Council people who gave Cauthen a cushy 3 year contract are ashamed of themselves. Rumor has it that several of them are admitting they made a huge mistake.

They did.

Subtle Brilliance - Funkhouser's Triumph of Leadership

When I went trout fishing over the summer, my guide would often whisper, "Do you see that one out there?", and gesture toward a patch of stream. Despite my polarized sunglasses and best efforts, I did not have the experience to see clearly into the moving water and distinguish the shape and color of a trout among the rocks and moss in the stream. "No", I would whisper back, but cast to the spot anyhow, knowing that my lack of vision didn't mean the fish wasn't there.

Various commentators have failed similarly in looking at the budget battles that ended this week. They think they know what leadership looks like, but they don't see Funkhouser standing out in the moving waters of the negotiations like they think a big fish would.

The visible leaders in the process were Deb Hermann and Jan Marcasson, and they deserve every bit of praise they are getting. They did a superlative job of crafting a budget that everyone could sign off on, blunting Cauthen's attempts to undermine it, and making the most significant steps toward fiscal responsibility this city has seen in a decade. We are miles and miles from Cauthen's "happy face" budget that he produced in February. Instead, we have a fiscally responsible budget that begins to tie hard numbers to citizen priorities.

If Hermann and Marcasson were the visible leaders in this process, why am I praising Funkhouser's triumph of leadership?

He's the guy that made it happen. Just as Grant and Sherman deserve credit for leading the Union Army to victory, Lincoln (another tall elected official without Hollywood good looks) was the leader that saved the Union. I'm not equating Funkhouser and Lincoln, but I am pointing out that great leaders are wise enough to create conditions for other great leaders.

Back when Cauthen issued his deeply flawed budget plan, Funkhouser did something that no other recent Mayor has done. He sent it out immediately to his cohorts on the council and to the entire city, demonstrating a commitment to exactly the sort of integrity, competence and transparency which guided the voters to elect him. He set out on an ambitious and well-attended series of forums, empowering people who have never been invited to a political backroom to participate in the process.

Most importantly, he directed the City Manager to come up with a budget that really solved the structural imbalance in our budget (offering Cauthen an opportunity to atone for one of the lies on his resume). Of course, that budget was a harsh document full of painful cuts that everyone knew was dead on arrival. But it set a baseline, and grabbed the attention necessary to create change. If Funkhouser had not demanded that document, of if he had created his own harsh budget, the budget passed this week would have been a tinkered version of Cauthen's fantasy-world opening budget, and we would still be speeding on the path to financial ruin.

Another great stroke of leadership was to get behind the Hermann/Marcasson budget, even though it did not match up to some of his goals, such as putting 20 new cops on the streets, etc. Those are promises that will simply have to wait until our financial house is in better order, and a great leader is one who recognizes and supports solid work by others. Hermann and Marcasson crafted a solid budget based on financial reality, and Mark would have been foolish to let his version of the best become the enemy of the very, very good.

Remember a couple months ago, when people were actually talking about recall? Here we are, 8 weeks later, and we have a Mayor with more political capital than ever, a council with a dozen responsible members, and a budget that reflects our Mayor's values instead of our City Manager's fantasy world.

Sometimes, leadership means standing up alone in the howling storm and, through incredible feats of strength and courage, changing the future. If you were expecting Funkhouser to seize the podium at City Hall and, through a dominating personality and brimstone-filled speech, force the Council to accept a budget that was his, all his, you were probably one of those who wondered where Mark's leadership was this week.

Some people aren't very good at seeing beneath the surface.

The Pitch Ripped Off My Cauthen Resume Story?

David Martin published an account of the fabrications Wayne Cauthen loaded up his Austin resume with in yesterday's Pitch. According to blogger tradition, I should now respond with a dose of righteous indignation and self-important bluster about how they're ripping off my work and completely dependent on citizen-journalists like me for everything they do.

But I don't take myself quite as seriously as some bloggers.

While I've been a critic of David Martin's penchant for publishing guess work and sloppy personal attacks instead of trying his hand at real journalism, I see no reason whatsoever to believe that he ripped off my story idea. The fact that Cauthen told Austin that he had corrected a structurally imbalanced budget and then submitted a structurally imbalanced budget a couple months later was the sort of thing that would attract the attention of any thoughtful, alert person (I'm too kind to speculate as to why the Star didn't catch it).

And, even if he had read it first here (which I doubt he did), he went back and did a far better job than I did. He noticed a whole lot more creative writing on Cauthen's resume. He caught the numerical flim-flammery that Cauthen made up about reserve funds and the Downtown redevelopment. In short, I picked a piece of low-hanging fruit on Cauthen's resume and David Martin shook the tree. Good work.

Did Wayne Cauthen Lie on his Resume?

A lot of us were hoping that Wayne Cauthen would get the job in Austin. It would have been a positive end for him, it would have given the city an opportunity to hire someone more in line with the new council's priorities, and it would have allowed the Nine Councilpersons off the hook for the silly petulant tantrum they threw when they tried to stick us with Cauthen for 3 more years.

Alas, it didn't happen. And I think I may have found out why.

Take a look at the resume Wayne Cauthen submitted in his quest for the Austin job. Pay attention to his very first bullet point: Corrected the city’s previously structurally imbalanced budget.

What?!?!

Friends, that's what we call a whopper.

Contrast Wayne Cauthen's recent resume with his recent memorandum submitting the budget to the Mayor, with the subject line City Manager’s Preliminary Budget for Fiscal Year 2008-09. Pay particular attention to the section entitled "The City’s Structural Budget Problem":

Kansas City, like a lot of major center cities in the country, has a structural budget problem. A structural budget problem occurs when costs of current and future expenses exceed current and future revenue streams. There are four criteria for a city budget to be structurally balanced and they are as follows:

1. Current ongoing revenues equal or exceed current or ongoing expenditures;
2. Planned or future revenues equal or exceed planned or future revenues;
3. Reserves are at an adequate level; and
4. Infrastructure maintenance is at an adequate level.

This budget that is presented for your consideration meets none of the above criteria. While significant progress is being made on the funding of infrastructure maintenance, and we have made progress on our reserves, the proposed budget uses a significant amount of one-time resources to balance the budget for next year; the projected deficits in the out years continue to grow and our reserves remain below desired levels.

This City has wrestled with its structural budget problems for decades. Previous budgets made great strides in dealing with the expenditure side of the equation through workforce attrition efforts such as consolidation of services; span of control reviews; middle management staffing reductions; and an early retirement program that significantly reduced overall staffing levels. In addition, the City has better aligned annual salary increases closer to annual revenue growth. Even with these significant changes, the structural budget problem persists. When revenue growth is strong, as it was anticipated just one year ago, the underlying structural budget problem is mitigated, but when there is uncertainty as to the strength in the local economy and new expenditure commitments are made, such as the City’s commitment to increased maintenance spending, the City’s structural problems re-emerge.

For a guy who claimed on his resume to have corrected our structurally imbalanced budget, he doesn't seem to have a problem submitting a structurally imbalanced budget. He even includes a segment on page 14 entitled "Staff Initiatives to Address the Structural Imbalance."

Lying on resumes is serious stuff. It's not only a major lapse in fundamental integrity - it shows a willingness to engage in fraud to accomplish personal goals.

Can anyone explain to me how the Wayne Cauthen's claim on his Austin resume was not a lie? If not, can anyone explain to me why he should not be told to clean his desk out and escorted to his car on Monday morning?

Update: Terry Riley Proposes Keeping Cauthen, Converting Channel 2 to Travel Channel

Terry Riley is choosing to get out in front of the Cauthen termination. Alerted that Funkhouser has no intention of introducing an ordinance to retain City Manager Wayne Cauthen after disclosure of his wild and extravagant personal travel billed to the taxpayers, Riley is fighting back.

His plan is to convert cable Channel 2, currently devoted to City Government, to a new Travel Channel, to be called Wayne's World. In it, Wayne Cauthen will chat about his world travels paid for by the taxpayers.

They're still working on the concept, but the first shows will be airing soon -

"3 Days of 'Work', 4 Days of Play" - a recounting of the lavish trip to Victoria, British Columbia with his wife, at which he spent less than half of his weeklong, three grand trip attending a "conference".

"Mile High Club" - how to spend more than $1500 on a flight to DC.

"What the Halifax?" - spending $1400 on a trip with no further explanation than "business conference".

"River Walking on the Taxpayer" - sometimes, on the way back from DC, you feel the urge for some Tex-Mex, so why not make it a three-city trip for $1500, even if you have no other apparent reason to go to San Antonio?

There's much more in development, of course. The jaunt to Paris, the visit to Bourdeaux . . .

Some of the other City Council members are complaining that they weren't fully informed about the change in Cauthen's outlook. Of course, as a taxpayer, I wasn't fully informed about their desire to change Channel 2 into a travel channel, but I won't complain. Like them, I should have expected something to change when I picked up the Pitch . . .