What’s a Community Worth?

One Councilor’s Response to the Claims About Our City Budget.

An OP/Ed Submitted By Bill Boisvert.

After listening to the recent interview with former Independence City Managers David Clyne and Greg Ellis, I felt I needed to respond to a number of things said about our City’s budget, the Community Services and Parks Fee, and the decisions made by the current City Council.

I want to be clear that this isn’t about erasing the good things David and Greg have accomplished during their years with Independence or blaming past administrations for where we are today. I’ve said publicly that I believe the professionals and elected officials who came before us made the best decisions they could with the information, resources and circumstances they had at the time. 

David and Greg are two former professional city managers with decades of experience. I’m a relatively new City Councilor, and I freely admit that I still have a lot to learn. I’m not a professional politician or city administrator. I’m a volunteer elected official who cares deeply about our little town and wants to serve it the best way I can.

David and Greg have every right to disagree with us. But several statements in their interview were, in my view, incorrect, misleading, missing important context, or contradicted by the solutions they themselves proposed.

I’m not interested in winning a debate. They shared their perspective. This is mine. I believe our community deserves to hear both.

CLAIM: The City Manager should live in Independence.

– Where our City Manager chooses to live has very little to do with whether she is good at her job. We hired a professional City Manager to manage a complex organization, lead our staff, advise Council, and help move Independence forward. She should be judged on how well she does those things—not by her home address. In my 25 years of military service, I had the opportunity to work with and learn from some exceptional leaders, so leadership is something I pay close attention to. What I have personally seen from our City Manager she is an absolute professional—both in the way she works with Council and, just as importantly, in the way she leads and supports her staff. She is one of the strongest leaders I’ve had the opportunity to work with. What matters to me is whether she shows up for Independence, understands our community, takes care of the people she leads, and does the job we hired her to do. From what I’ve seen, she does and we are lucky to have her. 

– This discussion touches on something that’s important to me personally as well: how I believe elected officials should work with the professional staff who serve our community. One lesson that has stayed with me is simple: good leaders don’t set their people up to fail publicly. I fully trust and support all of our professional staff. That doesn’t mean I blindly agree with them. I ask questions, challenge things I don’t understand, and sometimes disagree. But if I have a complicated question that I know will require research, I’m going to give staff the opportunity to research it rather than surprise them in a public meeting and expect an instant answer. I want the right answer, not an opportunity to catch someone without one.

CLAIM: The City Council is choosing to close the library, museum and parks.

– This is probably the statement that frustrates me the most because we did exactly the opposite. Council had a responsibility to adopt a balanced budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. We did that. The budget we passed kept our library, museum and parks open and established a dedicated Community Services and Parks Fee to pay for them. That fee is $19.65 per month-about 65 cents a day. Let’s be clear, it is the referendum that challenged the funding mechanism that we adopted to keep those services operating. The resulting threat to these services is not what Council voted for. We voted to fund them.

CLAIM: “We just want the people to have a vote.”

– There is a practical problem with the argument being presented: you can’t simultaneously suspend the funding and guarantee uninterrupted services. Our fiscal year began July 1. Council couldn’t simply leave a structural budget deficit unresolved until a possible November election. That’s one of the responsibilities voters elect us to handle. A referendum is a legitimate tool, but using it doesn’t eliminate the financial consequences of suspending the revenue.

CLAIM: The City should make cuts before asking residents for additional money.

– They have. Repeatedly. The City has eliminated or left vacant 11 positions over the last three fiscal years, in addition to reductions in services. The fee wasn’t our first response to the problem. It came after years of reductions and warnings that the General Fund was approaching an unsustainable point.

CLAIM: Their “Zero Net Increase” proposal would preserve community services without requiring further cuts.

– The problem is that their proposal doesn’t eliminate the cost—it moves the consequences somewhere else. Their plan calls for additional staffing reductions, furloughs, hiring and salary freezes, consolidation of management positions, and outsourcing City functions after the City has already made several cuts and reductions. Council made a different choice: rather than continue cutting staff and City operations to preserve community services, we adopted a dedicated fee to fund those services while maintaining the professional staff we believe Independence needs. That’s the real difference between the two approaches.

CLAIM: The City has $17-19 million in fund balance, so there is plenty of money available.

– This is one of the most misleading arguments in this discussion. A city budget isn’t one giant checking account. Their own handout cites an “Overall Fund Balance 17M.” But water money belongs to water. Sewer money belongs to sewer. Stormwater, streets, Urban Renewal, debt service, grants and other funds have their own purposes and restrictions. Our problem is a General Fund problem. Adding every fund balance together and presenting that total as though it were available to operate the library gives residents a false impression of the City’s finances. Recent questions about supposed budget “discrepancies” actually illustrate this point. More than $1.4 million that appeared at first glance to be unaccounted for can be traced almost entirely to ending balances in the Urban Renewal Projects Fund and debt funds that weren’t carried into one summary table. The money wasn’t missing-it was sitting in its respective funds.

CLAIM: There are major discrepancies in the budget, so how can residents trust the numbers?

– There seems to have been an error in one of the budget’s summary formulas. The General Fund was accidentally omitted from a grand-total calculation, creating what appeared to be an almost $10 million discrepancy. The amount omitted was essentially identical to the approximately $9.97 million General Fund total. There is an enormous difference between a formula error on a summary page and $10 million of taxpayer money being missing. Other supposed discrepancies have similarly been traced to ending fund balances that weren’t displayed consistently in a summary table and individual debt payments consolidated into a larger debt-service line. Transparency doesn’t mean pretending mistakes never happen. It means identifying them, explaining them, correcting them, and showing people where the money actually is.

CLAIM: Just use the City’s contingency until the November election.

– We’ve been doing versions of that for years, and that’s part of how we arrived here. I’ve served on the Budget Committee for four years, and year after year we were warned that we were heading toward a fiscal cliff. We continued spending down contingency to buy another year. At some point you have to stop kicking the can down the road. One-time reserves cannot permanently support recurring expenses. Pointing to millions in citywide fund balances doesn’t solve a depleted General Fund contingency. Every fund has its own bucket. Having reserves for water infrastructure or debt obligations doesn’t mean we have that money available to operate community services.

CLAIM: Ending transfers from utility funds created new money that the current administration spent on employees and salaries.

– This is misleading. Ending those transfers did not create new money. It stopped moving money out of the funds where it belonged. If utility revenue remains in the utility fund, that revenue can be used for infrastructure, future expenses and appropriate reserves instead of being transferred elsewhere. The City’s overall income didn’t increase simply because we stopped moving money between funds. Think of it like deciding to stop paying expenses with a credit card: you haven’t created new income; you’ve stopped adding to the debt. Portraying the end of these transfers as “new money” that was then spent on additional staff and salaries is simply wrong.

CLAIM: Just lower water, sewer and stormwater rates and the Community Services Fee becomes a “zero net increase.”

– This is simply another form of a fund transfer and it’s the opposite of transparency to suggest it. Moving the cost around doesn’t make it disappear. Reducing utility revenue while collecting a Community Services Fee may make the bottom line on someone’s monthly bill look similar, but those utility dollars exist to operate, maintain and improve those systems. Calling that a “zero net increase” skips the important question: what are we no longer funding in the utility system when we remove that revenue?

CLAIM: The Community Services and Parks Fee is simply a replacement for the levy voters rejected.

– This is another misconception that keeps getting repeated. The levy and the fee were created for different purposes at very different points in our financial situation. The 2024 levy was intended to restore community services to previous service levels. When voters rejected it, Council accepted that decision and made difficult cuts, including selling the Museum building. The current fee isn’t an attempt to recreate that levy. It’s a temporary stopgap intended to balance today’s budget and protect the services we still have while the City works through the next few difficult budget years and existing debt payments begin to drop off. It’s fair to oppose the fee, just as it was fair to oppose the levy. But portraying the fee as simply another attempt to impose what voters already rejected ignores both what happened after the levy failed and why the current fee became necessary. 

CLAIM: The City is increasing costs while cutting off community services.

– Again, our plan didn’t cut off those services. Our plan funded them. The entire purpose of the Community Services and Parks Fee was to preserve our vital community services while establishing sustainable revenue to support them.

CLAIM: Instead of charging the fee, the City could eliminate administrative positions.

– Yes, we could eliminate more employees. That’s a policy choice, and it’s a significant part of the alternative being proposed. Council made a different choice. After already eliminating or leaving vacant 11 positions over the last three fiscal years, we determined that continuing to cut key professional staff would ultimately hurt the City’s ability to operate effectively, plan for the future, attract growth, and provide the services our community expects. We believe those positions are important to the future of Independence. Rather than continue cutting staff and weakening City operations, Council adopted a fee of $19.65 per month—about 65 cents a day—to preserve our community services while maintaining the professional staff needed to run the City. Reasonable people can disagree with that choice, but that is the choice we made.

CLAIM: City leadership isn’t willing to listen to alternatives.

– Listening and agreeing aren’t the same thing. Our budget went through a public Budget Committee process. Alternatives were discussed. Questions were asked. Public comment occurred. Ultimately, however, somebody has to make a decision. Disagreeing with the decision doesn’t mean nobody listened. Councilor Evan Sorce and I have tried to take that a step further this summer. We’ve made ourselves available at the Farmers Market every Saturday specifically so residents can sit down and have a real conversation with a Councilor outside the confines of social media. You don’t have to agree with us. Come talk to us.

CLAIM: The Budget Committee wasn’t presented alternatives to the fee.

– I was there. I served on that committee. We discussed alternatives. We considered cuts, services, reserves and revenue. The fee wasn’t selected because nobody could think of anything else. It was the solution that ultimately emerged after weighing the consequences of those alternatives.

CLAIM: “Transparency is a thing of the past.”

– Okay, now we’re getting into “pants on fire” territory. Our budgets and meetings are public, our financial challenges have been discussed openly, and our City Manager and Mayor have held community conversations specifically to answer questions about City finances. They’ve even held public events where residents placed chips into different “buckets” representing the services they valued most—a simple way to demonstrate an important reality: City money isn’t one big pot. Different funds exist for different purposes, and for good reason. Moving away from transfers between utility funds and the General Fund is itself an example of greater transparency. If residents pay a water or sewer bill, they reasonably expect those dollars to support those utilities. Likewise, if we’re going to fund our library, museum and parks, residents should be able to clearly see what those services cost and how we’re paying for them. People are free to dislike the fee, but there’s nothing hidden about it. I’d rather have an honest conversation about a visible fee than obscure the true cost of services by moving money between different pots.

CLAIM: Past audits and financial awards prove the City’s previous financial practices were better.

– Past awards and clean audits are worth recognizing, but they don’t tell the whole story. The City’s financial history also includes declining reserves, interfund borrowing and transfers, significant debt, and credit-rating concerns. I don’t point that out to blame past administrations; they made decisions based on the circumstances they faced at the time. But if we’re going to use the past as evidence for how we should manage the City today, we need to look at the entire record—not just the parts that support one side of the argument. My focus is on learning from that history and moving Independence forward.

CLAIM: New water and wastewater investments aren’t needed because Independence has supposedly issued only one residential building permit in two years.

– This is an area where I’ll readily admit I’m not the expert in the room. Our water and wastewater planning, including important questions about future water rights, is part of a long-term City master planning process that has been underway for years. These decisions involve existing infrastructure, capacity, regulatory requirements, water rights, future growth and the long-term needs of our community. I don’t think the number of building permits issued over the last two years is enough to determine whether decades of infrastructure planning should simply stop. I’m going to rely heavily on our engineers and other professionals to help Council make that decision, because this is exactly why we hire people with that expertise.

CLAIM: An in-house City Attorney makes no financial sense.

– The City Attorney position was presented to Council as essentially a zero net cost, while adding valuable in-house expertise and reducing the legal workload on other staff. Based on what was presented to us, the decision made sense. That said, a cost comparison may warrant a closer look to make sure we’re considering the full picture.

CLAIM: David and Greg built these community services and don’t want to see them closed.

– I believe them when they say they value these services. So do I. That’s why I voted to fund them. And I appreciate the work they did during their careers to help create and maintain many of the things we enjoy in Independence today. Where I struggle with their current position is supporting a referendum that suspends the funding mechanism Council adopted and then portraying Council as the party trying to close those services. You can disagree with our funding solution. But removing that funding has consequences.

CLAIM: The City is “gouging” residents rather than making additional cuts.

– There wasn’t a painless option. We could eliminate additional employees. We could reduce services. We could continue consuming reserves until they’re gone. Or we could establish recurring revenue. Reasonable people can disagree with that decision. Calling it “gouging” doesn’t tell residents which alternative is actually better or what that alternative would really cost them.

CLAIM: Councilor Evan Sorce isn’t a good “source” of information.

– Ah, I see what you did there, good one. It’s a great soundbite, but it’s false and it’s mean. This comment bothers me because Evan is a volunteer elected official giving his personal time to serve this community. David is an experienced former professional city administrator and he knows how difficult public service can be. Disagree with Evan’s numbers. Correct him if he’s wrong. Challenge his argument. But taking a personal shot at a volunteer Councilor doesn’t help Independence solve anything. Evan and I have made ourselves vulnerable this summer by putting ourselves directly in front of the community at the Farmers Market every Saturday. People don’t have to wonder what we think or argue with us through Facebook. Come ask us. We’ve had residents tell us they disagree with us. That’s okay. Those conversations are part of the job, and frankly, they’re much healthier than what often happens on social media.

CLAIM: City officials won’t engage with people who disagree with them.

– I believe good leaders should listen to criticism and different ideas, but approach matters. If the goal is genuinely to offer solutions, questioning people’s competence, belittling staff, or taking personal shots at elected volunteers isn’t the way to start a productive conversation. Challenge our numbers, policies and decisions—but there’s a difference between challenging an idea and diminishing the person behind it. Respectful disagreement opens doors; personal attacks tend to close them.

CLAIM: Losing experienced employees means losing institutional knowledge that can’t easily be recreated.

– I actually agree, which is why this part of the interview stood out to me. Near the end of the interview both Greg and David correctly point out how damaging it can be to lose people with years of institutional knowledge, while their own written plan proposes eliminating or consolidating numerous professional City positions. You can’t simultaneously argue that institutional knowledge is invaluable and present eliminating the people who possess it as a painless solution.

Where I Land

Look, I don’t believe David Clyne and Greg Ellis are wrong about everything. They have decades of experience. They accomplished great things for Independence. They say they just want us to listen, and we should. Some of the questions they’ve raised in this interview deserve better answers than I can provide.

My goal is to listen, acknowledge, provide my input, and stand up for my community. There is a lot of misinformation going around. This debate should not be reduced to: “Council wants to close the library, museum and parks while David and Greg are trying to save them.” That simply isn’t the truth, yet they are going around and promoting that idea. Facts matter.

• Fact: We adopted a balanced budget that preserved our essential community services while maintaining the professional staff we believe Independence needs for its future.
• Fact: We adopted a dedicated fee to support those services.
• Fact: You cannot suspend the revenue Council adopted to keep these services operating and then blame Council when losing that revenue puts those same services in jeopardy.
• Fact: Moving money between buckets doesn’t create new money. 
• Fact: Spending contingency only postpones the problem. 
• Fact: Eliminating employees has consequences. 
• Fact: Calling a proposal “zero net increase” doesn’t make its underlying costs disappear.

I’m not asking anyone to simply take my word for any of this, I’ve already told you, I’m no expert. Read the budget. Watch our meetings. Ask questions. Challenge us when something doesn’t make sense. I won’t always have the answer immediately, and I’m sure I won’t get every decision right. But I will continue asking questions, doing my homework, trusting and holding accountable the professionals who work for our community, and making the best decisions I can for a town that I genuinely love. That’s why I’m here and that’s the perspective I want our community to hear.