San Diego County Cities Fare Well in 2023 Rankings
I've become a big fan of The History Channel's series 'Alone' and 'Alone Australia.' The goal is for one of ten contestants to survive the longest in the fall and winter months above the Arctic Circle or near the Antarctic Circle. Living off the land is not as easy as it seems, but the winning survivalist wins a significant cash prize.
I play a similar game with California's 482 cities. Except I get to wait for the last one to finally complete its audit by an independent Certified Public Accounting firm and then post its annual comprehensive financial report (ACFR) for its residents to see. This disclosure requirement is usually completed within six months after the conclusion of the June 30 fiscal year end. Sometimes it takes nine months. Sometimes ... years.
For Imperial County, the cities of Holtville and Westmorland have yet to post their June 30, 2020, ACFRs. That makes them nearly four years late. Because of this brazen delinquency, I have broken up Caltrans District 11 into two halves. This is why this ranking is only for the 18 cities in San Diego County.
Including a column providing the dates when the auditors completed their field work in the chart below shows that seven of the cities met the timeliness goal of Dec. 31. Another seven made it by March 31. Number 15 is Coronado (July 15, 2024), followed by National City (Oct. 2, 2024), Lemon Grove (Dec. 16, 2024), and finally La Mesa (April 11, 2025). La Mesa's City Council approved the receipt of the financial report on the evening of April 22. That's some 16 months late and nearly two years after the close of the fiscal year.
The reason for La Mesa's serious delinquency: 'Please note: FY 23 Audit is delayed due to ERP system upgrade and will be posted as soon as it is complete.'
Related Stories
2/26/2025
12/30/2024
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a type of software that integrates essential business processes within an organization. Investopedia provides a
Although along the Mexican border and experiencing immigration
The tiny city of Del Mar doubled its unrestricted net position, allowing it to move up one position. Compared to the previous year, its charges for services rose by $767,250, grants for public safety rose by $872,239, grants for public works rose by $578,059, property tax revenues were $550,991 higher, and investment income was up $699,868. Looking at the prior year's revenues in excess of expenditures of $4.6 million, these revenue improvements explain the increase to $8.2 million.
Along with $1.3 million in capital projects that were deferred due to the pandemic, the unrestricted net position grew by $6.2 million. This is probably more than you needed to know, but this is what can be garnered from a city's ACFR.
Solana Beach was the big upward mover. Having revenues in excess of expenditures of $17.3 million was the big reason. The city moved $4 million into restricted assets and invested $8.3 million in capital assets, leaving $5 million to improve its unrestricted net position.
Lemon Grove improved its unrestricted net position by 155 percent. It had revenues in excess of expenditures of $5 million, explaining the $4.1 million improvement to its unrestricted net position.
Let's go back to where we started. Timeliness is critical for decision-making when preparing the annual budget. It's important for transparency to the stakeholders, the property owners of the city, to keep them informed on the fiscal management of the city council. And promptness reflects proper stewardship.
California state Sen. Steven Choi (R-Irvine) introduced a bill in February to encourage timely reporting.
Here's to hoping we can provide the June 30, 2024, San Diego County rankings soon.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
12 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Batavia is set to get two EV charging stations, as the city discusses future energy needs
Batavia is one step closer to getting two new electric vehicle charging stations in the fall, following a recent vote by the City Council approving a contract for the project. The proposed sites are the parking lot on Shumway Avenue near Flinn Street, and the south parking lot at Batavia High School, according to a memo about the contract included in Monday's meeting agenda. The city is getting $320,000 in grant funding from the state of Illinois for the project, according to the memo. The total cost is estimated at just under $600,000, which was slightly over the city's budget, but the city said the Electric Division expects the difference to be covered by savings from other budgeted items. This local project is occurring as President Donald Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' is set to cut some clean energy initiatives, like a tax credit for rooftop residential solar that the Biden administration had extended, and tax credits for clean vehicles. As it stands right now, however, most Batavia residents don't have electrified vehicles, according to a citywide survey of residents conducted this year, the results of which were presented to the City Council on July 7 at a special Committee of the Whole meeting to discuss the city's electric utility planning. Of just under 800 respondents, 10.6% said they currently own or lease electrified vehicles, and more than half of respondents said they don't intend to buy one, according to a memo about the survey results. Just over half of respondents indicated they wouldn't pay more money for an electric vehicle. The city ultimately received six bids for the charging station project, per the memo, but only five were deemed responsible. The city is going with M3 Electrical Contractors, Inc., which is based out of Bartlett. The contract was passed Monday as part of the meeting's consent agenda. Each site is set to have two chargers and a minimum of four ports, according to documents for the bidding process included with the meeting agenda. The contractor will be responsible for designing, procuring and installing the EV chargers, and doing the lighting, signage and pavement striping, according to the city's memo about the contract. The day-to-day operations will be handled by the city, though the contractor is to provide maintenance and repairs for a period of five years. The project is set to start this month with engineering drawings, and the high school parking lot site is set to be prioritized so it's in place before the school year begins, according to the memo. The entire project is scheduled to be completed in September.
Bloomberg
13 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Helen Chandler-Wilde: The One Thing Rachel Reeves Can't Just Cut
Hi there, it's Helen Chandler-Wilde, a UK journalist and editor of The Readout. Hope you enjoy today's newsletter. Over the last year, The Readout has written a lot about the tricky position the government finds themselves in over the public finances.
Fast Company
16 hours ago
- Fast Company
Is our innovation economy at risk?
The last few years have been unpredictable for the innovation economy—the ecosystem that sees new science and technology taken through initial development, often in universities and public institutions, and then passed on to the private sector to build products and services using these new innovations. Sometimes, the new technologies create whole new industries, such as the internet or artificial intelligence. The innovation economy is responsible for most new high-paying jobs and economic growth. This is the formula that has resulted in robust long-term U.S. economic growth in spite of setbacks such as the great financial recession in 2008 and the pandemic. It's important to appreciate the true impact of a robust innovation ecosystem. In 2008, the U.S. and EU had roughly the same-sized economies, with economies around $14 trillion to $16 trillion. Fast-forward to 2024, and the U.S. economy is near $30 trillion, while the EU's is under $20 trillion. What can explain this disparity in growth? As always, there are many factors involved, but one critical difference is the higher investment rates in the U.S. in scientific research and development (R&D). According to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, in 2023, the U.S. invested nearly $900 billion in R&D across public and private sectors. Contrast that to the EU, where in 2023, the total R&D expenditure was around $381 billion. This large disparity is certainly part of the explanation for the faster economic growth in the U.S. In both the U.S. and the EU, the majority of investments in R&D are made by the private sector, but interestingly, the real driver of transformative innovation is often the public sector investments. Why? Because that's where the early-stage innovation happens. This type of innovation is extremely difficult, time-consuming, and takes years and decades of trial and error. Private companies and investors often have much shorter time horizons and are not interested in pursuing multi-decade basic research. Private sector R&D investments are mostly focused on applied science, where a foundational technology like the internet or AI is used to build products for consumers and businesses within a couple of years. Even in earlier-stage companies that are often funded by venture capital investors, a three- to five-year time horizon from when the money is invested to when the company goes public or gets acquired is the expectation. This has been the innovation flywheel now for decades: The public sector funds basic and long-term research, and companies funded by private investors develop commercial applications for the newly discovered science. The public is rewarded for funding the basic research with their tax dollars with new jobs, higher wages, products that improve their lives, and more. The private investors are rewarded with handsome returns (hopefully!). While the private sector rate of investment has increased over time, the U.S. public sector investment in basic R&D as a percentage of the GDP has significantly declined over the past few decades. Although it reached a high of almost 2% of the GDP in the early '60s, it is now at around 0.6% of the GDP—and that's before the recent deep cuts in federal government research programs and significant proposed cuts across the board for public institutions and university research programs. This most certainly will mean fewer new products, treatments, and breakthrough advancements. It would, then, make sense to think that the private sector would step up to make up for these cuts. However, this may be impacted by some other worrying trends in the private markets. Back in 2020 to 2022, when the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to zero percent and the federal government provided significant stimulus to businesses and households, private market investment rates exploded. This was due to the large amount of liquidity in the economy and investors having plenty of cash to invest. While this sounds good, such a major uptick in investments in a short amount of time can result in a lack of discipline. Consequently, much capital was invested in companies that did not have great prospects and often at high valuations, divorced from the company's fundamentals. The private markets have been dealing with the consequences of these investments for the last few years. Many of the companies that were funded struggled to hit their growth milestones, achieve successful exits, or secure follow-on financing. Many were saddled with high valuations and struggled to raise new funding at anything close to those numbers. Also, the higher interest rate environment means a higher bar for investors to deploy risk capital. This mismatch in the operator and investor expectations for valuations meant few IPOs and a slow M&A market, and thus lower capital distributions back to the sources of capital. The results of this go beyond just lower returns for investors and some disappointed founders. When there are low exit rates in private markets and low capital distribution back to institutional investors (e.g., retirement funds, endowments, etc.) and family offices, there is less money to be recycled back into the next generation of companies. Add this to the deep cuts for R&D in the public sector, and you can be looking at a serious threat to the innovation economy. HOW BUSINESS LEADERS CAN RESPOND In an environment of lower availability of capital and uncertain policy, focusing on efficient growth becomes a priority. That means that the old mindset of 'growth at any cost' no longer applies. Company leaders need to carefully think through how each dollar spent will bring in new revenues in the short term and manage their net burn rates. Investors in public and private markets are looking for companies that are disciplined and are adjusting their plans based on market realities. It also means being realistic with valuation expectations and not using assumptions that are too aggressive in growth projections, which are often the basis of valuation negotiations with investors. While we've seen frothy markets before, long-term value creation once again comes down to good fundamentals and planning.
