Bottom-Up Shorts: How To Make Your City’s Finances More Accessible

David Jenkins is a city councilor in La Plata, Maryland, as well as the city’s Local Conversation leader. He joins Norm on this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts to discuss his work with the city’s budget, particularly his efforts to share the city’s financial information with the community in a way that’s easy to understand and actually allows residents to participate in the budgeting process.

  • Norm Van Eeden Petersman 0:00

    Hey everybody, welcome to bottom up shorts. I'm Norm of strong towns, and after meeting 1000s of members, often think I've got to tell you about this person, and that's what bottom up shorts is all about. Quick introductions to regular people doing exciting things. They're not superheroes. They actually once felt much like you might unsure if they could make a difference. And today, my guest is David Jenkins, a city councilor in La Plata, Maryland, and the local conversation leader there. And the reason that they're on the show is that David has been sharing with us insights about what he's doing in his community in order to help change the conversation, specifically around municipal finances and the cost of infrastructure. And so you'll hear how he was inspired by last year's local motive session with Mitch randwood to do the math on his own City's finances. In fact, Mitch and David worked together to create spreadsheets and translate some of Mitch is work from Canadian into American, and do that work. And then David did our great podcast about it in late January that will be linked in the show notes. And I got the chance to meet and connect with David a number of times now, and I'm just glad that he is here on the bottom up shorts podcast, and I'm excited to introduce his story to you. And so please enjoy the episode. And with that, David, why don't you share about the work that you're doing with the podcast, as well as that that labor of working through your own City's finances in order to understand what's really going

    David Jenkins 1:32

    on? Well, first, thanks a lot for having me here. And let me say it's La Plata, Maryland. Everybody gets that wrong, so don't worry. What inspired me was, I'm a retired city and urban planner. I've had jobs at the state and regional and now local level. I ran in 2021 for a four year term. I'm not a finance guy, but your campaign about transparency and budgeting inspired me, because we're now starting our fourth budget cycle, my last one, because I'm not going to run for office again. And so that that article, and then the actual presentation by Chuck and Michael parsing your local budget just I went like, wow, this is something we need to do. I thought we needed to do, and it was particularly relevant about a year ago, because during our budget cycle, we had a very contentious process, and unfortunately, we had to raise our taxes for the first time in three years by three cents now, for the first time in 20 years, because we were looking at trying to help our staff with better pension so that and so we did a very poor job as a town of telling people about the budget and the process, because while we had a full room for for the two public hearings, they didn't know what was going on. They literally did not know. So I was extremely, frankly, agitated and motivated to try to do a better job. So I did a series of podcasts last year, and I'm doing them this year, and now I've also transitioned to also doing video podcasts. I do a podcast and make it into a video on YouTube. So I'm trying to tell folks what the process is, I've already posted what the our budget calendar is, how we prepare it. I talked about last year's budget and what's in it, and then I talked about budget indicators. And then Michael and Chuck inspired me to go back and like so I through through Michael, I he to help me get the spreadsheets. I went back to 2009 and all the audit artist statements from our town, and developed all these spreadsheets. And then he, he helped me translate what that actually means. But the important issue he mentioned, which is terrific, it's the trend lines, yes, and so ours is kind of up and down. Frankly, it's not bad, it's not good. But I was also trying to get educate our community that you like they say it's, it's not necessarily revenues and expenses. That's also what you're doing behind the scenes. So it's so that's what kind of inspired me to do that. And so I'll be following up. We'll be actually begin our first look at the budget at about three weeks. So I want to post short videos on how we go through this process.

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 4:35

    I love that, and I know that there are so many municipal governments that are really doing a genuine effort to improve the way that they are presenting the budget information, trying to use, you know, infographics and other tools like this. And yet there is sort of this, this core requirement that the translation of these things does take some responsibility to say, like, what are the matters that really matter here? And I think that's something. That's really powerful, and your your story actually really echoes the story of a local city council in my city where I gave him a copy of Chuck's book, the strong towns approach. Give him a copy, he read it through, and he said, norm. We just had our budget meetings, and I was asking very different questions than anybody else, and almost felt like an outlier, and yet, I felt this obligation to actually ask core questions, can we afford to carry on in the way that we are and and from your perspective, as you work with your community, you you have also identified like you have a four year window in which to really make the case we need to do the things that make our places stronger. How do you view that this next sort of coming process, and what role does speaking into the community have for that? And then, how do you how do you want to influence policy where you live?

    David Jenkins 5:48

    Well, that's a great question, and very timely, because I got an email from a resident who's from my ward, and we're a town of about 11,000 we're an hour south of Washington, DC, and he was asking all kind of questions about the budget. So we're going to have a zoom call maybe next week. And I sent him all the materials, but his question, again, was was very specific about and it highlighted why I'm doing this is because there's a need to know, because we're at the confluence of a huge growth spurt that we've had over the last four years, because we've had two annexation three annexations, two of which I voted against, and then we've had a project that was annexed 35 years ago. Have a new owner who bought it two years ago, and now they are going gangbusters, building houses, and they're going to and so it's a three, it's a 3100 dwelling unit project, yeah. So there's a lot of now paying attention to, well, what about infrastructure? What about water and sewer and all that goes with it? And so that's what, again, Chuck and Michael and your articles in strong towns, spurred me to think about, how do we pay for all this stuff? Yeah, specifically, what about the maintenance costs? So, and I love the word you just use about Outliner, because I ask a lot of questions. And to be very frank about it, I'm viewed as kind of like, why is David asking all these questions, right? Well, because that's why you elected me and, oh, by the way, we need to be Sheppard of your tax revenues. So they have a right to know, but they also have a right to be educated about the process. So I'm hopeful that this year, we do a more proactive job of engaging with the community by more than just they require two week notes about a public hearing. I hope we do that. And so if they don't, or that's why I'm doing the podcast, I'm going to up my game on the podcast. Yeah, and then, and then, I'm hoping that we have more out turnout for our for our meetings prior to the public, public hearings in April or May, and then a new element that's been added to the credit of our finance director, she has recommended, and we've approved an ordinance change where now we have a finance committee of qualified citizens with financial background. So they're in place. We passed the ordinance two months ago. We have five members. They're in place. We approve the membership, and some of them I know personally, and so I've been impressed by their background. So they're going to get a shot at looking kind of being our third eye. Okay? They're going to be looking over our shoulder, which is fine, because none of us on the council are financial people. Yeah. I mean, I only know a little bit to be dangerous, as Michael can probably tell you, given all my questions I asked him, so that's a good thing, but I'm still a little bit concerned about how well we do on our outreach to the community. Yeah,

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 9:02

    this reminds me, just in a members as strong towns, anything session that we were hosting, someone shared the discovery that they had that when their city has their budgets audited, that the audit is not for financial soundness, it's just where the correct steps followed, and that that was kind of a revelation for them, and I think it's as similar to the way in which we struggle at times, at strong towns where we have the campaign for transparent local accounting, and that has actually caused some people to be very defensive, to say we are very transparent. The numbers are there. And yet that level of opaqueness is not caused necessarily by any maliciousness, but is a consequence of never sort of having to take up those types of questions. So I love the idea of, you know, people being able to be that third eye, participating in that process. And at times it can be almost as if you're asking, like, so why are our stop signs read and you're like, Well, you know, that is a question maybe we don't need to resolve. But the question of, are we sure? That this brand new housing development is not just the illusion of wealth, but actually like will supply what we need for the long term. Then all of a sudden we begin to sort of traffic in some of these important things that really ask penetrating questions of what should we be doing for the long term viability of our places? And

    David Jenkins 10:16

    that that raises two responses are two issues related to number one is the strong towns continuing campaign about the Ponzi scheme and suburban development, because we're the classic example that in our region as well, and so people are upset about all this growth. But the other related issue is, you know how we going to pay for all this stuff in future years? Because, as you know, maintenance costs don't happen right away there. And so this gentleman, who we've been, I've been in a conversation with him about quest, he asked great questions, and one of them, which is, have you guys done out year projections. Have you guys done? What If analysis scenarios? And some of that information is in the auditing statements for each year, but the scenario analysis, to be very frank about it, from my perspective, has been somewhat limited. I mean, we've gotten some spreadsheets, but that's a little primitive, in my view. And so And a related issue, I've provided examples of what other communities are doing about outreach and transparency, and one of them I found recently is in Frederick County, Maryland, which is Northwester where I am. It's a big County, but, but, but, but what they did, they have a separate website, and they call it budget portal, and you can go there, and you can see how the current budget is performing, yeah, okay. They have infographics and stuff like that. And then they have a process where you could track when they develop the budget. You can you can see all their products and comment on it. It's very transparent. And even, even the county where I live, Charles County, they've even though there's some animosity. But to their credit, they've done a great job of doing video YouTube outreach. What I mean is called, let's get fiscal. Yeah, it's 10 or 15 minutes, and they do different topics and so, so I'm, I'm going to highlight that as an example that maybe we could do,

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 12:32

    yeah, with our local I mean, when I do strong towns, new member orientations, I always say the the campaign around accounting is the least interesting but most important of the five campaigns that we have. And it is that thing where I think the more that you dive into it, the more you realize this really profoundly matters. And I want to pivot into the question of, like, how you became not only what your professional sort of work, but also then that role and responsibility that you felt you had to take up as a local city council member, and kind of what put strong towns under your radar? Sort of, what was your hero origin story as we go along? Well,

    David Jenkins 13:07

    I have to tell you, I first, by accident, found strong towns when they really, literally began. Yeah, I mean, it's been a while, and then I kind of faded away a little bit, but then I came back to because I eventually was director planning for the town hall planner for about six and a half to seven years. And so I I was very then motivated to find out how we could do things differently. And to be very frank, my thinking, because I went to planning school in 1978 Okay, so I had to readjust my thinking because of the way things have changed dramatically, and I had to catch up Frankie catch up to that thought process, so that, again, re motivated me. And then at the same time, strong towns has upped their game like astronomically. And so that just gave me a lot of resources that I attempted to use when I was planning director. Unfortunately, I didn't last long on that job for about seven years, but I still maintain contact. And then once I decided to run and I actually won, who knew that really motivated me to really reach out and really grab hold of your your resources. And so I'm a paying member, you know, and I've been very upfront with the council members and telling them that, I mean, I've tried to get them to look at complete streets and other things like because I'm also very active in your campaign about transportation and cycling, and say, I'm a former runner and cycler and Walker. I've almost been hit twice. So So I have a lot of motivation of that campaign as well. And I just quickly want to add that our local conversation, they are really interested in the budget transparency issue as. We're going to be, hopefully pursuing that with more vigor as we get more members involved.

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 15:04

    That's awesome. And I know we are planning some significant launches for strong towns members in March around our budget translation sort of project, we're going to have a special seara event with Joe mini cozy of urban three. And I think it'll be really awesome stuff and and certainly, if anyone is inspired in part by what David is sharing, we have a whole session in our locomotive Academy, or the strong towns Academy, rather, on how to run for office as a strong towns candidate like you said, there are. We have a lot of different resources to help you feel more equipped. But as we wrap up, what is something that gives you hope in your community,

    David Jenkins 15:44

    I have hope, because we have grown so we're getting a lot a lot more diversity, frankly, and what I mean by that is younger energy, energy, because So I hope that translate into folks running for office, but more importantly, actively engaged with the town and frankly, asking the hard questions. That's kind of Frankie bit. Not I'm writing my last article for the town newsletter, and that, unfortunately has been probably one of my biggest disappointments, that we haven't had more turnout. Having said that, though, I've been heartened by the folks that were trying to get into a local conversation. Some of them are town residents, and they're very actively engaged, and they're young folks, so that's great. So I have hope for that

    Norm Van Eeden Petersman 16:36

    awesome. Well, folks, as we wrap up, I want to encourage you, if you are interested in this, go to strong counts.org/accounting, to learn more about the campaign for budget transparency, for a greater sort of availability of the information that we need in order to make long term decisions that best suit our communities. And as David alluded to, being a leader of a local conversation is a great opportunity to begin to really change the conversation, even to do so you know, through things like podcasts and other means, is another element of stirring up new types of conversations that are so needed in our communities. So head to strongtowns.org/local if you actually want to either find if you have a local conversation group near you, or like David has step up and be one of the leaders of your group and participate in helping your group to actually, really establish a foothold within your community. With that, I'm so glad that we got a chance to chat. David, thank you for coming on and to all of our listeners. Thank you so much for your interest and readiness to be part of this bottom up revolution. And so take care and take care of your places.

    David Jenkins 17:39

    Thank you, Norm.

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