Houston Comptroller candidate Orlando Sanchez says he will address long-standing city budget problems – Houston Public Media

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As the election approaches in Houston, Houston Matters with Craig Cohen offers listeners the opportunity to speak directly with the candidates. As part of the series, Cohen interviewed former councilman and Harris County Treasurer Orlando Sanchez, who is running for Houston comptroller.

As comptroller, the elected official acts as the city’s chief financial officer. Responsibilities include: verifying the availability of funds prior to City Council approval of City obligations, processing and monitoring payments in excess of $1 billion annually, investing City funds, conducting internal audits of City departments and federal grant programs, and operating and maintaining the financial management system. conducting the sale of bonds for government improvements and revenues, and preparing an annual comprehensive financial report.

Martin is running against three candidates: current City Councilman Dave Martin, current Deputy City Comptroller Shannan Nobles and former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins. They are all running to replace retiring City Comptroller Chris Brown, who is term-limited.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Questions from Houston Matters will appear in bold. The full interview can be found in the audio above.

Why do you want to become the next city controller?

Well, I served six years as a city councilman on the budget committee with two mayors, Bob Lanier and Lee Brown. I then became Harris County Treasurer and served there for 12 years. I’m on the board of directors of a bank here in Houston with approximately half a billion dollars in assets: Capital Bank. I chair the University of Houston Foundation Board of Trustees. We were able to allocate about 200 million (dollars) for the benefit of the university and students. I’m on the board of one of the largest hospital corporations, so I’ve seen a lot of money. I see how the government works. I’ve seen the private sector operate and believe that Houston, as everyone knows, is on a precarious financial cliff that needs to be addressed.

You have listed a number of things on your resume that may be applicable to this position. Is there anyone among them that you could rely on? Would you say, “Is this experience probably most relevant if you’re going to vote for me?”

Yes, I think 12 years as County Treasurer overseeing billions of dollars of county operations and of course the City Council on the Budget Committee. Billions of dollars that we controlled every fiscal year. So, two services – county and city – served me well. You know, I ran nine city and county races. I won six. So I think I have a pretty good background, a pretty good understanding of county and city finances, and a lot of institutional knowledge.

Other candidates running also have varying financial backgrounds and educational backgrounds. Some of them were local elected officials, some ran financial institutions or were auditors, and we have one who is currently a deputy comptroller. So, what would you point to from your years of experience when you say, “Well, what I did is different from what any of them did”?

Well, when I was elected county treasurer, I certainly brought transparency to the county coffers. And then I won one national award from the Sunshine Foundation in Washington for transparency. Gold Star ratings from the State Comptroller of Public Accounts. I was certified as a county financial officer, also known as a chief financial officer, one of the few people in the county certified by the Texas Association of Counties. You know, they say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, and I see that a lot in government. I’ll give you an example. When I was on the City Council, we spent $27 million on bike lane markings. They couldn’t resist. They fell into disrepair, they left. Today we are again spending tens of millions of dollars on bike lanes. We will build the Silver Line, 180 million dollars of public money. One penny brings Metro about $800 million. Nobody travels on the Silver Line. So when we keep doing the same thing over and over again. Pensions, we have a pension system that expects to include a $17 million commitment in the next budget for both the police and fire services. We are not moving from a defined benefit to a defined contribution plan, which is what we need to do, and I have a plan for that.

(Houston Matters Listener) Dustin asks what specific accounting and finance tools are you planning to implement in the Comptroller’s office?

Well, obviously the office is committed to transparency. But you know, it’s not so much about the tools; the accounting tools are all the same for both corporate and private. But I think we Houstonians need to start thinking outside the box with ideas on how to ease the pressure on the general fund to do things for the city. For example, our infrastructure, which we rebuilt with $2.5 billion in bonds under Bob Lanier while we were under federal EPA sanctions, has not been addressed in over a quarter of a century. We need to start reinvesting in infrastructure, but we can’t because we don’t have the money. We need more law enforcement. My idea is to create what I call a voter-approved public safety district in Houston that would create a revenue stream for first responders. And because they work for the county, we can move our first responders from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan administered by the County and County Retirement System of Texas, one of the largest pension systems in the United States. nation. This is a plus. And it would relieve pressure on the general fund, because about 60% of the city’s general fund is personnel costs, and police and fire make up a huge percentage of that.

Of course, this would require the approval of the mayor, the next mayor and the city council. Leave it to the voters, the voters to approve it. By the time all of this can happen and in the most efficient way possible (and I think we’ll agree that there are times when government isn’t as effective as you’d like it to be in those circumstances), we may already be on that fiscal cliff , in which you are located. talking about.

We can, but let me remind you that we have several areas throughout Houston, right? We have Metro, which is a tax district. We have the Port of Houston. We have a hospital. We have a Sports Department. Let me remind you that when Houston wanted to build three sports arenas, we passed legislation in record time that created the Harris County Sports Authority, which issued debt. And so we will need the help of the legislature, the approval of the voters and, of course, the approval of the city council to give the voters a public safety district we can do. This is a crisis. We only have 5,000 police officers.

Outgoing Comptroller Chris Brown noted that the city has been able to maintain a balanced budget over the last several budget years, thanks in large part to federal COVID relief funds. These funds will be exhausted by 2025. Brown says the city could then be in financial crisis unless it cuts spending and upcoming budgets by up to $300 million. The idea that you’re floating can’t happen that fast, maybe not even close to that speed. So, unless the state legislature and the city council and the mayor fall in line with you and the voters don’t, unless, unless, unless all of that happens, cuts have to be made, where do you make them?

Well, unfortunately, public works, parks and recreation, first responders, police and fire are everywhere. We know that our fire departments are already in poor condition. Our police, we don’t have enough academy graduates because we can’t fund enough academies to meet the demand. And so we will become like other cities that have filed for bankruptcy, or gone bankrupt, or are on the verge of bankruptcy. One of the benefits of creating a public safety district is that you create a revenue stream for our first responders, give them a fair wage for the work they do, and take that pressure off the general fund. So now the general fund can breathe and take care of infrastructure, parks and storm drainage. You know, flooding continues to be a problem. So, if we had enough funds, and people claim that they have been paying into the water and sewer fund for years for flood control projects, but that is not happening, and that is because the money is being diverted, as was the case with the restoration of America. , the COVID money is going away. I know this results in a $140 million deficit. And by the way, the current administration was currently using the American Restoration money coming from Washington to make periodic commitments, i.e. raising wages. It doesn’t come back to us. So yes, we are in business, we have big problems. Everyone knows this.

This job also involves telling the mayor and city council, “We can’t spend the money you want to spend on something.” I take it you’re willing to do this even though you think it should be a priority?

Well, my duty is to report to the mayor and city council once a month on the financial condition of the city. I go back many years, we had a city comptroller named George Greanias, at the time Bob Lanier was elected mayor, we had just come out of an economic crisis. The buildings in the city center were not for rent. There were very few of them. We had sales tax and property tax cuts. You know, we just came out of the oil crisis. And Bob Lanier implemented a debt program to rebuild the city’s infrastructure, put the equivalent of 600 police officers on the roads, and build sidewalks for children. And after that the city took off. But I remember George Greanias walking into the city council with his credit card in his hand and telling the people, “This is what the city does.” They charge for this. And that’s what the city needs to do. We have to borrow money from New York every time we issue government debt.

One reason for this is to limit the amount that can be increased by property taxes through an income cap. Would you like to see this hat change?

The ceiling could be changed if public money were spent responsibly. If you follow Houston politics, the reason we have limits is because for too long the leaders of this city have been wasting the people’s money, so members of the legislature stepped in and said we’re going to limit the income. But remember that despite the cap, revenues for the City of Houston continue to grow and outpace inflation. The city has no revenue problems; it’s how they spend it. So yes, if the city spends our tax dollars more responsibly, both sales taxes and property taxes, perhaps we could go to our friends in the legislature and ask for some breathing room. Given the needs, we need an academy, we need police officers, we need to rebuild our fire departments. We need to rebuild our infrastructure and prepare for flooding in the region.