Columbus city department heads have an important role in ensuring the city’s success and are tasked with running their department. Many times, advanced degrees or specialization is needed to be successful in the position. Department heads are required to submit monthly reports to the mayor and city council. The mayor and council supposedly use the monthly department reports to stay informed on what’s happening in the departments for departmental decision-making. The department heads are also the ones that work with the CFO and/or COO and mayor to put together the budget for their departments. Some of the reports would be expected to come from SeeClickFix, a municipal government software system the city uses. SeeClickFix is nationally recognized for civic engagement and resolving issues such as code enforcement, potholes, water leaks, and other non-emergency issues contactless.
The city started using SeeClickFix in November of 2019. SeeClickFix simplifies management of city issues from start to completion. It’s expensive around $8,000 a month but should make up for the expense in the ability to save money through its efficiency and other features, such as transparency, increasing citizen involvement, eliminating duplicate requests, and allowing for more prompt responses. Neighbors may access and consider information that’s easily accessible and see their neighborhood mapped.
For city employees, it streamlines their communications (with internal and external features viewed by others.) Employees don’t have to “re-enter” information because all communication is in one place. SeeClickFix’s built in reporting can provide useful reports and bring transparency to the city’s work, allowing for the potential of a more efficient and effective approach to tasks.
Code Enforcement:
In January 2021, the council hired an assistant for code enforcement, despite the department head’s reports saying she has less than ten cases some months. Why did the council hire an assistant when the workload did not justify it based on the monthly reports? Is it because the council knows the monthly reports are incorrect and believes the director to be overworked? Or, is it the council spends without thoughtfulness?
In September 2021, the councilwoman from Ward 6 asked about the code enforcement report. She asked whether the entire city really only had nine code enforcement issues and why did the report incorrectly totaled to six? The department head responded to the identification of the error with, “my assistant prepares it,” with no pledge to correct it moving forward. Did anyone ask why she wouldn’t check her assistant’s work that is to be presented to the mayor and council? Another time, the councilwoman asked how believable is a monthly report that stated there were no code issues in Wards 1, and 2. Remember the Oak Manor apartments (located in Ward 1) drama?
There were code enforcement reports prior to the assistant coming on board that also did not have the correct totals. Does the department head care that her overly simple monthly reports contain obvious errors? If these simple reports fail credibility what other failures are happening in the department? Why are city employees refusing to use the reporting capability in SeeClickFix?
Public Works & Police Department:
But it’s not just the code enforcement report. It’s most of the department head reports. The preparer of the June 2021 Public Works report to properly total the columns. No one appeared to notice. The most recent report, December 2021, contained numerous obvious errors [See graphic]. No one said a word and the report was accepted. It appears some report preparers are hard-keying numbers as opposed to using the sum function or otherwise validating the data integrity of reports. In the December 21, council meeting, the police report contained mathematical errors showing 148 instead of 165 and has a bunch of zeros that appear to be as if they did not want to fill it out as opposed to providing the real number. Some items to note from the police department report are the reported lack of any stolen property recovery since January and the lack of grand jury indictments for 2021 and 2020 may lead one to wrongly believe our District Attorney is not doing his job. That is not the case, rather these police reports are wrong.
Those results bring to question whether the police department report has errors or if Columbus has and underperforming police department
There seems to be a high number of mistakes that could easily be resolved if the employees would use the tools at their disposal. But these reports should not be just numbers, they need to tell a story and elaborate on what the numbers mean. Otherwise, they may be meaningless. And, if they are meaningless, why doesn’t someone speak up?
Should we be alarmed these are the same people tasked with developing a budget and staying within the budget for their department? Are their budgeting skills reflected in their monthly reports? If they cannot be trusted with the small things, why the big ones?
It Could Be Worse (But Let’s Try to Be Better)
Columbus is not the worst-run city in Mississippi. There are several more notorious cities. Meridian has its fair share of drama, but its director of works is an engineer and functions as the city engineer. Meridian also achieves the distinction of recognition from the Government Finance Officers Association of the U.S. and Canada that awarded Meridian the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting. Columbus’ financial statements have never been in the running for favorable recognition. Some things are easy, like hiring competent people to do professional jobs. Other things are difficult, like fighting a corrupt election process to elect competent council members to hire those people.
Below are the documented reports:
