UPDATE: Sioux Falls end of the Year Financials, did we end 1.8% up from the year before?
l3wis Ironically I talked about this last night at the city council meeting before the Finance Director, Tracy Turbak lost his marbles. I figured we could get the end of the year financials from the State Department of Revenue. But that wasn’t my point, my point is that we should get that information from our Finance Department, especially before voting on a re-finance or spending $3.3 million in surplus.
A concerned citizen sent this to the city councilors yesterday after doing his own research. As I have been predicting we came in somewhere between 1-2%;
Subject: January 2018 2% Municipal Sales Tax
February 8, 2018 the local January 2018 2% municipal sales tax report was published on-line by the SD Dept. of Revenue.  The twelve month rolling growth rate is now 2.05%, an improvement from December 2017’s 1.8%; November 2017 was also 2.05%.
The most improved sector was retail trade (53% of the total), 0.93% 12 month rolling growth rate (Dec. 2017) to 1.41% (Jan. 2018).  The net dollar amount of this nearly 0.5% increase was $ 331,000 in 2% municipal sales tax.
Six of the eight retail trade sub-sectors contributed to the month to month gain.  Rank order of gainers: food stores, miscellaneous retail, apparel & accessory stores, eating & drinking establishments, furniture stores and auto dealers (about $ 394,000). Two sub-sectors of retail trade were a drag in January: building materials, general merchandise stores (about – $ 83,000).Source: SD Dept. of Revenue, “Statistics for All Cities by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Major Group and Division,” Sioux Falls General Recap, Tax Due, p. 935.
Finance Director, Tracy Turbak ‘FREAKS’ on city council
If you FF to the discussion about the re-finance of the city’s bonds (1:03), you will see a very disturbed and angry finance director freak out on the council accusing them of not trusting him and not being able to figure out why they won’t approve one of his re-finance plans.
First off, like most things coming from the administration, the cards are held tightly to the jacket until the last minute when something needs to be ramrodded through. Turbak didn’t give the council the option of spending the surplus until the 2nd reading last night.
Secondly, most of the council wants to spend it on something else or NOT at all. They just haven’t had a discussion to determine what that is yet.
And lastly, as councilor Stehly pointed out, their probably needs to be proper public notice before that happens to follow open meetings laws, and the city attorney kind of agreed and said he needed to look into it.
So the council DID approve the refinance and told Turbak they will get back to him with a decision about the surplus hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
The council seemed bewildered why Tracy freaked out, but it was no surprise to me, because with the assistance of the mayor’s piss poor attitude towards the council, Tracy has often shown a great deal of contempt towards them, and has often ‘lipped off’ at councilors when they ask questions. In fact one councilor (I think Kiley) pointed out to Tracy that they WILL ask questions of him and expect answers.
Tracy was completely out of line last night, especially when following chain of command. While MMM may be his boss, Tracy does work for the ELECTED city council also and the more importantly the citizens they represent. And while he doesn’t have to take orders from them, they DO have to approve or disapprove his proposals.
He didn’t do a very good snow job on the council last night, and like MMM, Tracy’s days are also numbered.
*Tracy also made the comment that the end of the year financials usually are NOT released until the end of February each year. While that may be true, I think this year is unique due to the election and the fact Turbak was asking for a re-finance. It seems he has the information already, so why not release it early before asking the council to spend the surplus. It would be helpful.
