Yeah, yeah I know: it’s a tired cliche from an old movie, but that’s what I’m asking. Where are the numbers from those in favor of selling the suburban assets of the Trenton Water Works? Where is the analysis showing how good a deal this is for Trenton taxpayers? Why can’t they show me the numbers?
We’re a week away from the election, after all. This is all that’s on the front page of the City Website, a month-old press release with a simple graphic and a few Questions and Answers. The good people over at TrentonYES (Hi, Guys, hope you had a good weekend!!) don’t have much more on their website.
Kind of surprising, don’t you think? If the case for this sale is so strong, you’d think that the City and NJ American Water would have no trouble showing us spreadsheets and charts and trend analyses showing us all why a YES vote would make sense. But they haven’t. Why do you think that is?
Last year, the Stop the Sale petitioners worked on their analysis, and it’s been sitting on the website for well over a year. This analysis – which by the way was based on the City’s own numbers the last time they released any – shows projections for how the Water Works perform after the next five years, with and without the sale.
The results? Without the sale, over the next five years the Water Works earns $3 Million in profits annually for the City, and still ends up improving its fund balance. With the sale, the numbers look good for a few years, but very soon slip into multi-million dollar losses every year, far into the foreseeable future.
Have the Stop the Sale folks made any errors in their numbers? Perhaps. But over the last year no one in the City has pointed out any flaws in their work. Nor have the City/American Water presented their own analysis in response. Odd, that!
At this very late stage in the game, even were the City and Trenton Yes to put forward their own detailed analysis today, without allowing voters proper time to vet their numbers – as Stop the Sale certainly has over the last year – it would be hard to take their numbers seriously.
There are a few more public events before next Tuesday’s election where the Ballot Question will be discussed. The next one is tomorrow night at 7PM. Beautiful Trenton is sponsoring a Mayoral Debate and Water Works Forum/Cafe, at Trinity Cathedral, 801 West State Street. I would have hoped that an event such as this would be an opportunity for the public to ask questions of the representatives from both sides after they had published their information and made their case, after having been educated about the issue.
Stop the Sale has done that, I think. Given the grassroots, shoestring nature of the effort, I think that the TrentonWater.com and StopTheSale.org websites have done an outstanding job of giving Trenton voters all the information that’s available. In addition to the financial analysis, all of the contracts and several court documents are on the TrentonWater site.
TrentonYes.org, in comparison, has little to show for their effort, I think, despite being vastly better funded. Their campaign has been heavy on flash: fake $400 Million checks; pie in the sky promises; anonymous ringers on blog pages; and a large number of American Water company employees – and even family members of employees (pretty pathetic) – on the TrentonYes Facebook page. They’ve been extremely light on substantive argument for their case.
Realistically, I don’t think there is much likelihood of seeing that kind of approach from the Water Company or their Chattanooga consultants. Neither the Administration nor American Water have shown us their 5-year or 20-year projections because they would probably show the same thing that we see from Stop the Sale: the numbers don’t add up for Trenton taxpayers.
It’s a bad deal.
Vote No.
This was posted as a comment under the Times’ June 5 article – NJ American would pay $9.6M in first year of water works sale. Using the contract amount of $9.6 million takes the numbers back to where they were over a year ago. Balancing the budget would require using any remaining surplus or, if and when there is no surplus, raising rates.
The anticipated revenue has shrunk from $16.2 million to $12 million. The revenue from City customers remains at about $16.5 million. So now the total anticipated revenue is $28.5 million instead of $33 million. In your May 30, 2010 article you cite “and $29.5 million in expenses” for the anticipated expenses. Comparing the new revenue figure to the estimated expenses shows that there will be deficit of $1 million. Without a surplus no money will be available to transfer to the City. How is this a circumstance that provides support for the sale of the assets?
This also raises the question of how credible is Mr. McIntyre. Does he just not know what the contract of sale stipulates regarding the water sale revenue or does he know and just fabricates or is required to fabricate estimates that make the sale look like it will result in revenues that generate a surplus? Since he didn’t know or was acting as a mis-informant for the City, how can the expense estimate be accepted as accurate?
Also, how can NJAW’s estimate of the surcharge payment be blindly accepted as accurate? Maybe a look at the contract of sale will show that the $2.2 million figure is too high and that Mr. McIntyre’s statement that the surcharge will “jump to $4 million” is also inaccurate. Just considering the fact that the main project that will expose NJAW to the surcharge is the Filtration Plant upgrade and that the cost of that upgrade is at least twice the cost of the two projects that Mr. McIntyre cites, raises the question of how could the surcharge almost double? This only raises more credibility alarms.
Thanks, William – Another example of why I think the City and NJAW are avoiding showing us any numbers. They just don’t work out to a positive outcome.
Three more comments regarding the financial viability of the sale are at the following link:
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2010/06/nj_american_would_pay_96m_in_f.html
William – Thanks for those links to your Comments. You directed me to look at the contract’s Exhibit C, and how that Capital Improvement Surcharge. That’s what I would call a Trojan Horse. The way that the two rates are multiplied together is a killer: the effective share of capital improvements that NJAWC would be responsible for looks like it might be 60% of 60%, or in the range of only 36% !!