Detroit on the Appomattox

Downtown Petersburg is rich in historical architecture, not much else.

Downtown Petersburg is rich in historical architecture, not much else.

by James A. Bacon

For its 2016 fiscal year, which closed June 30, the Petersburg City Council enacted a $75 million General Fund budget. Somehow, the city managed to close the year with a $17 million deficit.

Last week, council members knew the situation was dire. Staring at what they thought was a measly, $7.5 million deficit, they unanimously approved a 20% cut in personnel costs. Then, as reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, they learned that the deficit was actually $17 million.

Holy moly! In a state that constitutionally requires a balanced budget, how can a government body be 20% off? How can things go so far wrong?

Mayor W. Howard Myers sounded clueless. “I had no idea. I’m like, wow, where is this coming from,” he told the Times-Dispatch. Vice Mayor Samuel Parham only hinted at the problem: “This is a problem that has compounded over many years, so the  balloon has blown up and it has popped here on us.”

The city’s financial woes became apparent early this year when an audit found overspending in the General Fund by $1.8 million and anticipated a budget shortfall of $6 million. City Council fired City Manager William E. Johnson III, and appointed Dironna Moore Belton in his place on an interim basis. With Belton at the helm, a team of state auditors dug deeper into the books and found that about $4.5 million had been depleted from some “internal accounts” without the city’s knowledge.

Petersburg is a case study in how a municipal government can run up deficits without calling them deficits. The Times-Dispatch article refers to $2.5 million in financial obligations to the city school system, the regional jail and the Virginia Retirement System carried over from the 2016 budget to the 2017 budget.

“When you have a deficit, it just keeps rolling forward, Belton said. “We are working very diligently to do long-term finance restructuring, and we’re still trying to break down exactly the causation (of the deficit), but we do know the number of delinquent accounts that we have.”

Bacon’s bottom line: Fiscal negligence of this magnitude is just extraordinary for Virginia, and it raises all sorts of questions.

First, is this incompetence unique to Petersburg, or is it widespread and Petersburg is just the first to “blow up,” as Vice Mayor Parham put it? The situation calls to mind the chronic inability of the city of Richmond to complete its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, which suggests that at least one other jurisdiction’s finances are in disarray. If I were a resident of the City of Richmond, I would be very concerned.

Second, Petersburg apparently used a number of tricks to hide the deficit, which allowed liabilities to build up unbeknownst to elected officials. Stretching out payments to vendors is a classic — Illinois is notorious for the late payment of its bills, incurring more than $900 million in late payment interest over six years. Petersburg apparently did the same thing on a smaller scale. How many other Virginia jurisdictions are slow-paying their vendors?

Third, what can be done when a deficit this large has built up? Petersburg, a jurisdiction of about 32,500 people, is already down on its luck. The city has a hollowed out economy, a large population of poor minorities, and one of the worst-performing school systems in the state. Its challenges are immense. Going into drastic budget-cutting mode can only make matters worse. For now, city officials seem determined to take drastic action to get their fiscal affairs in order. But the task will be painful. Which brings us to the fourth question…

Fourth, what happens from a constitutional perspective if a jurisdiction runs a deficit? Are there any sanctions? Or is the requirement to balance budgets every year merely aspirational — desirable but not mandated? What provisions are there for the state to step in? Who initiates the process — the governor or the General Assembly? We’d better get answers because my guess is that the problem is not going to go away.