Sioux Falls Public Works Director, Mark Cotter, stretches the truth a bit

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As you can see from the chart above, that was presented to the Sioux Falls City Council during the budget hearing yesterday, Mark says we have $7 million in ‘DEBT’. He goes on to explain that we have extremely low debt for the water department.

At first I thought the number seemed a bit low, I wasn’t the only one. Councilor Stehly asks Mark what we have in the Water Department’s enterprise reserve fund, he tells her around $22 million. So then councilor Stehly asks, “Why not just pay off our debt?” Then Cotter admits that we actually have over $76 million in water department debt, and the $7 million number is actually ‘DEBT SERVICE’ for 2017.

These are the games the city directors play with presentations, they intentionally leave out certain words and key information in order to confuse constituents and councilors.

Most of debt is due to the Lewis & Clark pipeline (you know, that $80 million dollar pipe that trickles around 10% of our water supply to us).

 

Posted in: Public Works, SF City Council, Sioux Falls

2 Thoughts on “Sioux Falls Public Works Director, Mark Cotter, stretches the truth a bit”

  1. The D@ily Spin on August 17, 2016 at 1:10 pm said:

    Seven million in annual interest for just the water department debt? It’s the annual income for 230 families. The city bank is First Premier. For Munson, banking was divided among 5 banks. I’d say there’s white collar criminal intent. I’m guessing (because it’s unreported) annual city debt service is 60 million. That’s handsome profit for just one bank.

  2. John Bennert on August 18, 2016 at 8:18 am said:

    Hey, give the guy a break! He was only off by 70 + – a few million. “Besides what difference does it make now?”

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