The Goldfish swam last night – the first meeting of the year and first in nearly a month:
Finley presented council with an 89-page fiscal year 2021 financial report. He didn’t want to go into too much detail or “bore you with this”, except to say that “it was a tough year” and mentioned the winter storm and electric fund [starts at 7:30 mark].
Wait…what??
We were told last year that the electric fund was VERY healthy. The former Bungler-in-Chief Misti Talbert even specifically praised Finley for his supposed deft handling of electricity purchases. I wrote about it HERE.
They raised rates anyways, of course, starting back on 11/1/21. But now Finley is telling us it was a “tough year”. The electric fund took a roughly $1.5 million dollar hit (they spent $7.8 million on electricity but had only budgeted $6.3 million), according to Finley [17:10 mark]
This is very odd to me, because the Bungler-in-Chief Misti Talbert bragged on Finley last year when she said:
“It’s important for the people watching at home to know: the position that we are in in terms of the utility rates we pay is accredited to one person and one person only – his name is Finley deGraffenreid….0ur risk has been mitigated by his ability to broker deals for us and secure us not knowing that something like this would happen, but in the event that it has we come out on top. When it comes to utility rates, that’s who you thank right there” [points to Finley]
Then Finley pat himself on the back a little bit with these assurances:
Finley: “Our contracts are currently fixed-pricing…so the pricing from our wholesale suppliers per kilowatt will not change”
Finley: “We are financially healthy…our electric department does carry adequate reserves to overcome the temporary spike”, “I think this is a bump that we just absorb because we are healthy financially….the impact…is pretty negligible…but we are certainly in a position to absorb that if council so chooses”
[Listen for yourself at the 20 minute mark HERE.]
A $1.5 million dollar hit sure doesn’t sound like we came out on top. Sounds more like we were on the bottom….biting the pillow.
Yet another huge black mark Misti Talbert’s disastrous mayoral adventure. Keep in mind this same idiot is now running the LEDC and recently signed off on ANOTHER $1.5 million loan for the Business Park boondoggle.
I’ve requested the 89-page report so I can see it all myself. I’ll keep you apprised.