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Every quarter, Mendocino ratepayers send money to the Mendocino City Community Services District to treat our wastewater and manage our groundwater. Since December 2022, the combined sewer and groundwater charge for a single-family home has risen from $61.23 to $119.23, an increase of about 95%. When ratepayers are asked to pay nearly twice as much, they deserve more oversight of how that money is spent, not less.
This month, the district’s board of directors is scheduled to vote on Ordinance 2026-1, which rewrites the purchasing rules the district has followed since 2008. Updating an 18-year-old policy makes sense: since 2008, consumer prices have risen about 55% and construction costs, a closer match to some of what the district buys, have risen about 70%. But the proposed rewrite does far more than update. It moves many spending decisions away from the five directors who represent the ratepayers and onto staff.
Under the current rules, any purchase of $2,500 or more needs board approval. The new ordinance raises that line to $25,000, ten times higher. Purchases between $2,500 and $25,000 would no longer need the board’s approval before they are made. The board would see them only afterward in the monthly list of payments it signs off on.
For perspective, the district’s entire operating budget this fiscal year is about $1.54 million. Under the draft ordinance, the superintendent alone could approve a single purchase of nearly $25,000, as much as or more than the district budgets for a full year of lab testing, training, safety equipment or the annual audit. Purchases up to $100,000, more than the district’s entire annual budget for legal fees or for supplies and tools, would need no written bids. A larger city might reasonably let its manager approve $25,000 purchases alone. For a district this size, $25,000 is real money. Any comparison to other public agencies should be to agencies with similar budgets, not to cities or districts many times our size.
Other changes go further. Between $25,000 and $100,000, the board would approve purchases backed by three estimates that can be verbal and that staff only “should” obtain. Engineers, attorneys and other professionals could be hired without board approval for up to $25,000, up from $10,000.
The draft also broadens the exemptions. The 2008 rules allow only “the bidding requirements” to be waived when an exemption, such as an emergency, applies. The draft allows “the purchasing requirements set forth in this Ordinance” to be waived, which could include approval and documentation, not just bids.
Inflation is one of the district’s stated reasons for the update, and adjusting for it is fair. Even using the higher construction inflation of 70%, purchases would need board approval starting at about $4,300 today, not $25,000. Written bids would be required starting at about $43,000, not $100,000. And maintenance and repair contracts would require a formal request for proposals starting at about $17,000, not $100,000. Staff have not pointed to any cost index that supports their figures.
The other stated reason is flexibility. Faster purchasing has real value for a small district with a small staff, but every dollar of flexibility beyond inflation is a dollar the board no longer approves in advance.
The district has not shown that the 2008 limits caused harmful delays, or that inflation-adjusted limits wouldn’t fix any that exist.
This isn’t about the current superintendent and his staff, in whom many of us have confidence. But the 2008 ordinance lasted 18 years, and this one may last as long. Good policy should protect ratepayers no matter who holds the job.
The board should keep the draft’s stronger conflict-of-interest rules but send the rest back to staff with a few straightforward changes:
- Tie the limits to inflation, using the more generous construction-cost measure: Board approval at $5,000, written bids at $45,000, and $17,500 for professional services and maintenance. Then adjust them each year to a named cost index so they never again need an 18-year catch-up.
- Require written quotes, not verbal estimates, for every purchase that requires estimates.
- Limit waivers to bidding only, with each waiver documented in writing and reported to the board.
- Prohibit splitting a purchase into smaller pieces to stay under a limit.
The board is expected to vote at its 5 p.m. meeting on Monday, Nov. 30, at the wastewater treatment plant, 10500 Kelly Street, with Zoom access. Agendas are posted at mccsd.com. Written comments can be sent to [email protected] or mailed to P.O. Box 1029, Mendocino, CA 95460. If you pay a sewer bill in Mendocino, this is your money. Please speak up before the vote.
Dan Potash worked for and with government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels for all of his 35-year professional career, mostly as an attorney.