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The proposed change in LB policy, scheduled for a Council vote on Tues. Dec. 2, has to date received no verbal mention or public statements in Committee discussion by the three Councilmembers bringing it forward for enactment.

Below is the pertinent portion of the Council item agendized for Dec. 2, displaying LB's current policy and the Lowenthal-O'Donnell-Mungo advanced verbiage:

...Fiscal Impact Statements Will Be Included With All City Council Letters

[current verbiage] Policy - For any proposed City Council action, an analysis shall be included with the description of that proposed action that describes the projected or potential impact on revenues and expenditures, and on the City's financial position, and, if significant, on the potential use of or diversion of City resources' such as staff, materials, or equipment. For any expenditure, the funding source must be identified as well as whether the expenditure has been budgeted and what the prior year expenditure was, where applicable, There should also be a discussion of any economic impacts to the City, if relevant.

[proposed added verbiage] The fiscal impact may be prepared by the originating department or elected or appointed office, but must be reviewed by the Financial Management Department and is to be modified by Financial Management if needed to better describe the fiscal impact. The proposed City Council Letter should be submitted in accordance with normal administrative timeframe to allow for Financial Management Department review and comment. If time is not sufficient for the required Fiscal Impact analysis, Financial Management may hold the item, provide a preliminary fiscal impact analysis, or may indicate on the Council Letter fiscal impact statement that additional analysis and information is recommended.

An elected official is not required to have a review by the Financial Management Department if in their opinion the proposed City Council item does not have any financial cost or other fiscal impact and its approval will not result in the use of significant staff time or require any significant diversion of resources. In such a case, the Fiscal Impact statement must be as follows: [Italicized in memo] "No financial cost or other fiscal impact and no significant staff work or other diversion of resources is intended with City Council's approval of this item..Action on this item is not to result in any Significant financial cost or fiscal impact, use of staff time or other resource diversion. As a result, the Financial Management Department has not been requested to perform a fiscal impact review."

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The item's procedural origin is public record (detailed below), but LBREPORT.com has been unable to find any public record of verbal discussion of the item by any of the Committee members (Lowenthal, O'Donnell or Mungo) who've advanced it for a Dec. 2 full Council vote.

Below is the procedural record to date:

• Aug. 12, 2014: Committee chair Lowenthal held a meeting of her committee attended by newly elected member Mungo (with vice chair O'Donnell absent.) The item agendized for the Aug. 12 Committee meeting was: "Suggested Action: Approve recommendation. Recommendation to receive and file the review of Long Beach budgetary and financial policies." The agenda item was accompanied by a list of LB's current 21 budgetary and financial policies, most recently adopted by the Council on Oct. 8, 2013...heading into the 2014 election cycle.

  At the Aug 12, 2014 Committee meeting, Financial Management Director John Gross engaged in a colloquy with the Committee on issues such as including multi-year Fiscal Impact Statements...but neither Lowenthal nor Mungo made any public mention of changing policy verbiage to let all elected officials exempt themselves from including Fiscal Impact Statements with their agendized items based on their self-opinion of their item's impacts. LBREPORT.com provides audio of the Committee's Aug. 12 discussion for reference here.

• Oct. 17, 2014: Financial Management Director Gross sent the Committee a memo, cc'd to all Councilmembers and the Mayor, which included the proposed text letting elected officials exempt themselves from including a Fiscal Impact Statement for their agendized items. The memo text isn't public at this point.

• Oct. 21, 2014: The Budget Oversight Committee meets with all three members present (Lowenthal, O'Donnell and Mungo.) The item as agendized was "Recommendation to receive and file discussion on including year-over-year fiscal impacts in staff and council reports." Mr. Gross' memo is attached to the agendized item. It includes text -- visible for the first time publicly -- that would let elected officials exempt themselves from providing Fiscal Impact Statements based on the elected officials' opinion of their item's fiscal impacts.

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  The memo text proposes the following change:

  The fiscal impact may be prepared by the originating department or elected or appointed office, but must be reviewed by the Financial Management Department and is to be modified by Financial Management if needed to better describe the fiscal impact. The proposed City Council Letter should be submitted in accordance with normal administrative timeframe to allow for Financial Management Department review and comment. If time is not sufficient for the required Fiscal Impact analysis, Financial Management may hold the item, provide a preliminary fiscal impact analysis, or may indicate on the Council Letter fiscal impact statement that additional analysis and information is recommended.

  An elected official is not required to have a review by the Financial Management Department if in their opinion the proposed City Council item does not have any financial cost or other fiscal impact and its approval will not result in the use of significant staff time or require any significant diversion of resources. In such a case, the Fiscal Impact statement must be as follows: [Italicized in memo] "No financial cost or other fiscal impact and no significant staff work or other diversion of resources is intended with City Council's approval of this item..Action on this item is not to result in any Significant financial cost or fiscal impact, use of staff time or other resource diversion. As a result, the Financial Management Department has not been requested to perform a fiscal impact review."

  Financial Management Director Gross states verbally to the Committee:

  "We were requested to take a look at Council's financial policy number 11 on Fiscal Impact Statements and we addressed what we understood to be Council's concern which was to revise the Fiscal Impact Statement to have review by the Financial Management Dept., to include a review of staff and other resources that might be used and also to look at the multi-year issue of making sure that the Fiscal Impacts reported a prior year if that was applicable. So we have given to you a possible revised Fiscal Impact Statement that I think does all those things..."

  Asked by chair Lowenthal what the next step would be to enact the new policy, Mr. Gross said the next step would be to make a recommendation to the Council to revise the policy "based on this wording [in his Oct. 17 memo] or whatever the wording is if you wish to change it and then they [the Council] would adopt the policy."

  O'Donnell made a motion, seconded by Mungo, to do so. It carried 3-0. LBREPORT.com provides audio of the Committee's Oct. 21 discussion for reference here.

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On that basis, the proposal to change current LB fiscal/budget policy to let LB elected officials avoid including a [clarifier added] management reviewed Fiscal Impact Statement for their agendized proposed actions if "in their opinion" their item won't create fiscal impacts will reach the Council for discussion and enactment, modification, or rejection on Dec. 2.

Developing.