Economic Report Card for Ogden City

Another article the Standard-Examiner refused to print

By Rob Garner

Like a lot of other people in our community, I have been reading the political mailings and letters to the editor that all contain facts and statistics. I decided to do my own research to determine what the truth actually was relative to some of this data. This is not the type of reading that I particularly enjoy, but the type of reading that I’ve learned is necessary to draw the right conclusion.

The mayor has claimed to be tough on crime and says he’s increased the spending on the police. In total dollars he is correct, but not so in relative dollars to past budgets. In our 2001-02 budget, the city committed 44.2% of the city budget to police, whereas in the 2005-06 budget we are now only spending 38.5% (levels came down each year).

At a recent neighborhood meeting on crime, the police chief was quoted in the Standard Examiner as stating that in 1975 the city police recorded about 25,000 calls per year and that today that number is about 100,000. This does not sound like a reduced problem to me; nor do I think we should be reducing the size of the police department’s piece of the budgetary pie dollars.

During this same time period the Economic Development budget grew from 7.3% to over 25% of the budget, (this does not include the RDA activity). It’s the only budget within the city that continues to grow at the expense of city services and infrastructure, and is far in excess of what most other cities spend in this area.

Second the mayor has touted his successful efforts at revitalizing the economy of the city. The insinuation being that the city wouldn’t be doing as well as it is, without his efforts.

In order to ascertain the validity of his claims I went to the Weber County Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFR) for the years of 2003 thru 2006, (http://www1.co.weber.ut.us/Clerk_Auditor/cafr.php) and then compared those financials with the Ogden City financial reports (http://www.ogdencity.com/manageserv.cafr.html) for the years 2002 thru 2006. This was very interesting (if you like reading financial reports, that is), in that it provides an insight as to how Ogden City is doing financially relative to our surrounding communities, (i.e. is the current administration as "good" as they say?) In simplistic terms, this allows us to compare Ogden’s economy with that of all of the other cities in the county, where the county’s performance represents the average (as a measuring stick so to speak). Since both the County and the City use the same accounting firm to prepare these reports, comparisons are not that difficult.

First though it must be mentioned that the County uses a year-end accounting basis, whereas the City uses a fiscal year ending on June 30th. I mention this because the time periods don’t line up exactly, but the differences between the two entities on the specific comparisons are large enough to minimize this timing difference. I looked at the percentage differences between the years for both entities on various measures. Several stood out, but I’ll just mention a couple of the more significant economic indicators.

Ogden City has not fared as well as our neighboring communities over the last couple of years when it comes to Sales Tax Revenue growth (one very good measure of business activity), or in Total Net Assets growth (this being the city’s investments into capital assets such as land, buildings, equipment and infrastructure). These are two very good measures of business activity within a community, where the first one, Sales Tax Revenue growth, shows how much business is transacted in the community (i.e. how fast is business growing in the community as almost all transactions involve sales tax) and the latter, Total Net Assets growth, indicates how many of the community-generated revenues are being reinvesting back into the community (investments in roads, city buildings, parks, road repairs and infrastructure such as the water systems). These measures generally need to match the local level of inflation to indicate break-even operations when compared to the prior year.

Sales tax revenue growth for all of Weber County was 6.3% in 2005 and 15.8% in 2006, while Ogden City only saw 5.5% growth in 2005 and only 8.6% in 2006.

Total net asset growth in Weber County for 2004, 2005, and 2006 was 3.8%, 12.4% and 11.2% respectively. Ogden City was 1.4%, 1.5% and 2.6% for the same time period, not even keeping up with inflation.

With Ogden City representing 40% of the population of the county, Ogden is lowering the overall performance of the county in these two key measurements of growth. If Ogden is below the county average, the rest of the communities within the county must perform much better economically than Ogden to bring the county average down to its current level. Clearly the hype from the administration that their efforts are paying off has not held true for the last few years when it comes to business activity or city well being.

Also interesting is the mayor’s statement that he has lowered city taxes three times during his 7 years in office, suggesting that this is a major accomplishment. Weber County has 14 cities within its boundaries and of those cities, 8 reduced their property taxes over the same period, cuts ranging from a low of 5.18% to a high of 27.09%. Ogden’s reduction is about 9.08% and that puts us in 6th place among those communities that lowered their taxes. Also contrary to one of his mailings, the city has raised our city taxes twice during his term in office, in 2004 and 2005.

An interesting commentary accompanying the 2006 Weber County financial report states “the County’s economy should be seen in the context of the state’s current economic boom,” as reported by Zion’s Bank economic consultant. The point here is that the county was doing well, not only because of its actions, but also because of greater economic activity going on within the state.

The same could be said for Ogden, except that Ogden hasn’t even kept up with the rest of the county. Seven years of hype sounded good but the numbers don’t lie. We have underperformed our neighbors and are now an additional $50 million dollars in debt. The city can’t stand another 4 years of this type of prosperity.

To summarize this performance of the city under the leadership of Matt Godfrey for the last seven years, let me conclude the following:

1. He has cut the budget spending levels on the police department by 13% (44.2 vs. 38.5) and we, the residents, have felt the effects of those cut in the current level of crime activity.

2. In 2006, his economic programs, meant to encourage business activity within the city, (I used 2006 as it was his best year and the latest which should have shown the fruits of his seven years’ labor) showed that Ogden City only generated 55% of the sales tax revenues of the average in Weber County.

3. His re-investments into our city infrastructure haven’t even kept up with the rate of inflation, which means that the city is structurally falling into decay. His failure to address these needs earlier in his tenure of office have cost the residents millions, as all of the costs, relative to these needs, have escalated enormously in the last five years.

What future gains he projects from his yet to be developed business activities (if they even work) may not even cover the deficit that he has created for the city in delaying several projects in the city, specifically our water and sewer systems.

4. His property tax reductions rank us in 6th place out of 14 cities in the county, not a placement worthy of writing home about.

5. He has almost doubled the debt level of this city in the last two years.

Now the Report Card: If I were an instructor grading him on his management performance, while in office, and grading him on his contributions to the betterment of business activity in the city, I couldn’t give him a passing grade based on how his performance compares to that of other surrounding cities and their management.

Godfrey has taken his eye off the ball in the position that he was elected to serve (that of mayor responsible for managing the operations of the city) in order to focus on things that he prefers, i.e. business development at any cost. He has assumed the responsibility of the department head of business development and, at the neglect of everything else in the city. His actual effectiveness in this business development job has been questionable at best when looked at in the bigger picture rather than in individual accomplishments. His development plans for the city are not coordinated or properly timed; they are too fluid in concept and not consistent in execution. Most of his accomplishments have only taken place when he has been willing to give too much away in negotiations. Ogden residents will ultimately pay the price of his business inexperience and immaturity in this arena as well as in his neglect of his other mayoral responsibilities, specifically as they relate to maintaining the city infrastructure.

The suggestion that Ogden is just about to turn the corner when Godfrey’s whole vision comes together should also be viewed with extreme skepticism in that most of these projects are financed with publicly funded incentives or with public financing activities that will fix the developer’s contribution to the city’s tax rolls at current levels for many years to come. The use of these financial vehicles will severely limit Ogden’s benefit from these future projects and additionally if any of these projects fail, Ogden may be saddled with their debt.

In my opinion, this is clearly a management issue that needs to be addressed in the upcoming election. It’s time for a change.

Rob Garner

I am a 20 year resident of Ogden, a previous Ogden Planning Commissioner, partner in a small business and on retainer to a major company in the oil industry providing expertise in the area of business development.

Editor's Note: The forgoing article was first published in abbreviated form on the Standard Examiner "Flowers and Darts" web page, after having been inexplicably declined for publication in the Std-Ex hard-copy edition. The above article is an author-submitted revised version, which has been considerably expanded since the original Std-Ex submission. We publish it here at the author's request, in order to facilitate the widest possible dissemination of this important analysis, prior to Tuesday's election.