Updated numbers show that seven town employees were paid more than $200,000 in salaries and benefits in 2017. This includes the town manager and his three assistants.
How much is too much? (Valles)
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Apple Valley’s car allowance (Valles)
Each member of the Apple Valley Town Council receives a $570 per month vehicle allowance as part of their $30,000 a year salary and benefits package that includes health insurance. I wanted to focus a bit more attention on this vehicle allowance and drill down a bit so that the readers can see what kind of tricks are being played on them.
Situation politics (Bell)
The Town Council of Apple Valley should do a much better job of managing the town’s business and financial affairs. On paper, we have a majority of what appear to be well qualified (members), however their performance is far from what one would expect from such qualified individuals. As an example: We have a Town Council consisting of three successful business men, one socialist, and one gadfly.
More opaque ‘transparency’ (Rice)
The Highway 18 office of Apple Valley News has “closed” signage. The Town of Apple Valley sends legal notices to their Hesperia office of the Apple Valley News each Friday, which then forwards it via U.S. Postal Service to only 100 subscribers as it has done for years. The annual cost to taxpayers is well over $1,000.
Credit card audit? Yes, please (Rice)
Recent Daily Press letter “Cut the Credit Cards” is great headline advice to the Town of Apple Valley and taxpayer residents. Public Records reveal that 90 employees use 27 credit cards, an unknown number of American Express cards with thousands in monthly bill payments for many invoices, a very large number of gas cards and high value (thousands) for electronic fund transfers (wire transfers). Staff are using credit cards with others’ names, little if any, guidance and controls are absent and instances of non-employees are using the town’s credit cards. Each and all of these should ask “why” is this going on for years? Airfares are made on short notice with associated higher costs. My observations of invoices and signature sign-offs containing typical notations is not considered to be appropriate of the many “best practices” controls necessary on the many front-end risks associated with credit card usage by a public agency.
AV sewer increase (Carloni)
I chuckled at the headline story of the May 14 Daily Press, “Sewer fees on the rise in Apple Valley,” by Matthew Cabe. Oh, the sweet irony! Oh, the hypocrisy!
$216,000 in 2016 (Valles)
You may want to sit down for this one.
What if I told you that you could work for the Town of Apple Valley, retire in December of 2015, work zero hours in 2016, and still “earn” $216,000?
Cut the credit cards (McCarthy)
It was brought to my attention that the Institute for Local Government (ILG) publication, that is affiliated with the League of California Cities, referenced the high risk of credit card misuse at a conference that was well attended by the Council for the Town of Apple Valley (TOAV).
Tea Parties and Obama Phones (Valles)
Once upon a time and before she was elected to the Apple Valley Town Council, Barb Stanton was a leader of the High Desert Tea Party movement. She portrayed herself as a conservative opposed to higher taxes and government waste. She railed against the abuse and misuse of taxpayer dollars.
Auditors: VVWRA mislead FEMA on project, jeopardizing $33.1M
Auditors say the regional wastewater authority offered misleading information to the Federal Emergency Management Agency when it performed a major pipeline replacement project completed in the summer of 2016.