Insufficient revenues. Increasing expenditures. Stagnant economy. Port Townsend is heading over its financial cliff fast.
Don a green eye shade and take a flinty-eyed look at the city budget just approved for 2024. There’s red ink everywhere. The vapid verbiage of John Mauro’s City Manager’s Report can’t cancel it. It is only erased by burning reserves unlikely to be replenished in the foreseeable future. At a time when significant growth is needed, city projections for next year see a contraction in business activity and tax revenue.
What is celebrated as growth over the years since the city emerged from pandemic restrictions owes much to recent high inflation. It is not real growth.
Since those restrictions ended, the city has lost 10% of its commercial utility accounts. Businesses are closing up and leaving town. I recently counted 18 shuttered businesses from upper Sims Way, down Water Street and along lower Washington Street.
The Public Works Director has stated that strong, steady growth and a “radical change” are needed. Instead we are seeing denial, business as usual and City Hall chasing grandiose projects it cannot afford, like an expensive new aquatic center.
The words “save money” and “austerity” are foreign to City Hall’s vocabulary. Instead, the city seeks to expand outlays and staffing. That means a more rapid depletion of reserves and an accelerated march over that financial cliff the city acknowledges is its future.
The Fiscal Cliff
The City’s Financial Sustainability Task Force predicts that city finances will launch over a “fiscal cliff” in a few short years. We reported on the city’s grim financial future here and here. The graphic from the Task Force’s final report shows the city eating reserves at a quickening rate beginning in 2025 and descending into municipal failure in 2028.
The city’s 2024 budget — just approved on December 4, 2023 — shows that the cliff is closer than the Financial Sustainability Task Force predicted. After less than two years of employment, the city’s finance director bid farewell with the last budget she would submit to city council.
The city has seen a number of resignations of other key personnel — including the city clerk, HR director, and other financial staff — a subject worthy of another report. In terms of fiscal impact, departures of critical employees translates into losses as money and time must be expended in recruiting and hiring replacements. Inefficiencies abound until replacement hires get up to speed and fit in.
The work of the outgoing finance director shows that the city currently lacks income sufficient to pay all its bills. To make the budget balance, it must take money out of reserves. A lot of money. The Financial Sustainability graphic projected very little change from 2023 to 2024. But the reality reflected in the approved 2024 budget shows the city has already begun its dive off that fiscal cliff.
Look at all the red ink in the following table from the city’s budget for the coming year.
The city had to reduce its General Fund reserve by 35% to produce a budget on paper that appears balanced. Its General Fund reserve is now just barely $4 million. That is down from $6.9 million at the start of 2023. That huge drop of more than a third of its reserves is due to the fact that the city overshot its projected 2023 expenses by almost $2.4 million. And more of its General Fund reserve will need to be withdrawn in the coming year.
Nearly $2.4 million, more than one third of the city’s reserves, were drained to meet expenses in 2023.
Where did all the money go?
Consultants got a huge chunk. And expenses related to the golf course “envisioning” and indulging expensive fantasies for a new aquatic center contributed heavily to a $4.7 million supplemental budget passed earlier in 2023.
The city has also been spending down its $2.755 million in federal Covid gift money (American Rescue Plan Act – “ARPA”). According to federal law, these funds were to be spent on water, sewer and other infrastructure, revenue replacement for the hit municipal finances took from Covid lock-down, assistance to small businesses, households and industries negatively impacted by Covid-related losses, or premium pay for essential workers. All of that money will be spent by the end of 2024; none will be left for 2025.
Judge for yourself whether these federal funds were spent properly. The largest single use of federal Covid funds — $741,500 — will, by the end of 2024, be spent on enhancing City Hall and council chambers, paying for such items as a new door, chairs and tables, carpet, and remodeling staff offices. (See page 12 of the 2024 budget report.) In his year-end message for 2023, City Manager Mauro elevated remodeling Council chambers to the level of a “core” municipal service.
The next largest use of Covid funds — $505,958 — went not to fixing sewers, water lines and other infrastructure, but to re-imagining the golf course and the pool. On top of that, another $255,000 went to parks.
Not a dime of these Federal funds was spent on fixing sewers and water lines or other infrastructure, with the possible exception of $59,000 for a mini-excavator.
The city expanded its payroll by adding a “Long Range Planner” for $240,000. Another $50,000 was spent on something called an “Engagement Survey.”
Rapid Growth and Expansion As More Red Ink Flows
Critical infrastructure — streets, water and sewers — show deficits in their capital and operating accounts. At the same time City Hall expenditures have been growing dramatically in other areas.
Comparing the city payroll in 2021 to the 2024 budget shows huge growth. Government, of course, is expanding after pulling back during the pandemic. But this robust ballooning comes in the face of that impending dive off the precipice just up ahead. City staffing is, thus, returning to and exceeding previously unsustainable levels.
- Expenditures for the mayor and council have more than doubled.
- The city attorney has seen a 32% increase.
- Communications, a new PR department, has been created.
- Human resources has grown by 260%.
- Planning and Development Services has grown 250%.
- Police administration — not to be confused with patrol officers — has more than doubled.
- Police operations has also grown — by 45%.
- The City Clerk has enjoyed a budgetary increase of 53%.
The city hopes to add six more employees in 2024.
The city manager budget has remained relatively constant, but Mauro has been hiring and expanding other departments that serve him, putting those numbers onto other budget lines. Positions like the new Communications & Marketing Manager make his office look good.
Let’s not forget that in November 2022 Mauro got a $12,500 retention bonus, a 10% raise and a car allowance large enough to cover driving 10,000 miles annually. His severance pay was doubled from 6 months to one year’s salary, and then he went on a 5 week vacation. This came at a time when he was boasting of implementing “lean thinking” at City Hall.
Feeble Economy, Diminished Revenues
The city’s utility account suggests a significant loss of businesses and commercial activity since 2021, with commercial accounts shrinking from 454 to 408.
To make matters worse, the city is forecasting a downturn in revenues for 2024 — even though it continues to increase its expenditures.
Business & Occupation tax receipts, a reflection of economic activity, have on average since 2021, been flat at $927,000, and are predicted to decrease in 2024. The Real Estate Excise Tax, which is generated by real estate sales, has declined steadily from 2022 and continues its downward trajectory in 2024.
The Lodging Tax, a proxy measurement for tourist activity, shows revenues pulling back to 2021 levels.
Sales tax receipts account for 40% of the city’s general fund tax revenues. They bounced back following the lifting of Covid restrictions but have stalled out.
Adjusted (decreased) for inflation, the picture grows more somber. The annual rate of All Items Consumer Price Index inflation in 2021 was 7%, in 2022 reached 9.1%, and in 2023 is estimated to be 3.1%. The columns in the graph immediately below would be, cumulatively, that much lower when inflated revenues are adjusted to show real dollar values.
Note that sales tax receipts are projected to decline for 2024, not a good omen when there’s already red ink in the budget.
Next Up: 2025
Where are desperately needed, steadily increasing revenues going to come from?
The lodging and sales tax graphs show that the tourist economy is effectively maxed out. THING, the music and arts festival which has been a big boost to the city’s tourist economy, will not be returning. Fort Worden, once a dynamic job creator, continues to struggle. An inadequate stock of hotel rooms — both in numbers and quality — is a serious bottleneck preventing expansion of the tourist economy and disqualifying PT as a convention or business meeting destination.
New businesses are not sprouting up in PT, nor are established businesses relocating here. As mentioned earlier, I recently counted 18 shuttered or darkened storefronts and offices from upper Sims Way through downtown on Water and Washington Streets.
There are always tax and utility rate increases to feed city coffers. But making Port Townsend an even more expensive place to live and do business is the opposite of what is needed.
The Tri-Area, by comparison, seems to be doing better economically. The office parks and retail centers appear to be fully occupied. A new Dollar Store is going into Port Hadlock and Henery’s has acquired and invested heavily in the old Hadlock Hardware. Carl’s Building Supply is expanding and adding a showroom. These are signs of confidence in what is emerging as a competitive, lower-cost economic hub slated to enjoy significant population growth in future decades. It was recently disclosed at a County Commission meeting that Jefferson County outside Port Townsend city limits already generates over 70% of the county’s total sales taxes.
Port Townsend depends heavily on retail sales. But it continues to lose out to Kitsap and Clallam Counties where many residents travel regularly to do much of their shopping. PT currently has a 9.4% sales tax. City leaders are pushing to raise it to 9.6% to fund a new aquatic center. Clallam County, in contrast, has an 8.6% rate in its unincorporated areas, and Sequim, where the big box stores patronized by PT households are located, has an 8.9% rate.
The Aquatic Center Fantasy
Cash-strapped Port Townsend already allocates $386,000 to subsidize the Mountain View pool. In an effort to persuade the rest of the county to accept higher sales taxes to pay for construction of a new $37-$48 million aquatic center, PT is promising to up its contribution to $430,000 annually for the next 30 years, and threatening to withhold its largesse unless the new pool is built at Mountain View Commons.
Baloney.
Port Townsend does not have the money to back up its words. When it falls off that fiscal cliff in a few years, will the city terminate police officers, engineers, sewage plant workers or city hall administrative staff in order to throw $430,000 at pool operations? And how can the current city council bind the hands of future city councils struggling to provide core municipal services? This city council cannot make the pool subsidy an untouchable sacred cow for the next three decades.
Spending on amenities, particularly recreation, is the first thing axed by struggling municipalities. Pools are money drains. When municipal budgets are pinched, recreation expenditures get cut. Every community that has a public pool faces this dilemma, and many have closed their aquatic facilities because they had no other choice.
Without the luxury of fat reserves and a booming economy, Port Townsend also will have no choice but to jettison its discretionary commitment to a recreational amenity. State law requires that municipalities fund core services; it does not mandate funding pools.
Water, Sewers and Streets
The city needs to spend $56 million keep its sewer system functioning by lining all asbestos, concrete and vitrified clay pipes. That is a conservative estimate. Plus, the sewage treatment plant is at capacity and showing its age. To accommodate future growth, it must be modernized and expanded. That cost has not been nailed down.
The city needs to spend, according to a 2019 analysis, $119 million to repair and sustain its sole water line from the Quilcene River. So far, the city has banked about $8 million towards this goal.
The Lords Lake dam above Quilcene that retains city drinking water requires seismic upgrades that could cost $4-5 million.
The city needs at least $30 million to get a grip on its rapidly failing city streets. Voters approved a .3% sales tax for streets, but that may not be enough. Completely and properly fixing the city’s streets is estimated to require the next thirty years and more money.
Leadership Deficit
Not only on financial ledgers does Port Townsend show a deficit. It suffers from a paucity of competent, responsible leadership. Those who exhibit and strive for financial sensibility are in a small minority on City Council. The city is mostly governed by seriously unserious people.
In their own words:
From City Manager John Mauro’s 2024 Budget Message:
Drawing together a responsible, disciplined, and strategic budget is somewhat like assembling a three-dimensional puzzle. There are many pieces, and each piece doesn’t really make sense on its own. It takes time to understand the shape and scale of the pieces and how they relate to each other. Once the pieces start clicking together, it takes the form of something more cohesive, stable, and sensible. It becomes something that keeps our community running and guides us.
We’ve put our heads together to puzzle over the 2024 budget, working out a series of inter-related puzzles at the same time – all while the pieces themselves actually morph and change. For instance, we’ve been working toward a more comprehensive vision for our streets and transportation that serves all of us. We’ve been working to increase the availability of attainable workforce housing. We’ve been envisioning the future of the golf course, and a regional aquatic center. And much more. While each of these things is, itself, substantive and complex, focusing only on one of them at a time misses a more honest discussion of tradeoffs and balance, as well as the strategic power of the whole.
All those words and not one mention of the fact the city is being forced to burn reserves again.
And then there’s this, when explaining “sensible streamlining”:
[W]e are sensibly streamlining policies to best optimize necessary checks and balances with desired efficiency and productivity.
What, if anything, did he just say?
There was hardly any discussion by city council when adopting the 2024 budget at their December 4, 2023 meeting. For clearer insights into the irresponsibility and lack of common sense of those in charge of the city’s troubled affairs, we can go to their more in-depth, more detailed and more thorough discussion of building a new pool.
The price tag, as we’ve reported here repeatedly, is huge, $37-$48 million. That $11 million spread represents the foreseeable cost overruns. We have reported on the worrisome problems with the aquatic center’s feasibility study that bode ill for the project’s long-term financial success. An expensive municipal pool can empty public coffers in a hurry and saddle taxpayers with a hungry beast that must be fed for decades to come.
How seriously have members of the ruling clique on City Council addressed this huge challenge?
Here’s City Councilor Aislinn Palmer, in her comments at the November 21, 2024 meeting where Council voted to express support for the aquatic center proposal:
The operating costs just don’t add up for me. But I think we just have to build it. We’re at the point where we have to build something, and some of that will just have to get figured out as that’s just how you get things done anywhere. (@2:19:43 of the video recording)
Councilor Libby Wennstrom got City Council chuckling. Here’s her response to concerns that problems with the aquatic center’s finances could spell trouble:
If we’re over our head in ten years, at least we’ll have a pool to dip in. (@2:31:55 of video recording)
Recently City Council devoted an entire meeting to working with a group therapist. They were told to write down things they felt they did correctly, then share how reflecting on a memory of a past success made them feel. Taxpayers were billed $1,300 for the ninety-minute session.
Yup, Port Townsend is in trouble.
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our “About” page for more information.
This is not surprising at all. It’s like a bunch of lemmings, in a way.
I am sad to say that you get who/what you voted for. I know that’s not fair when people of one persuasion dominate the polls, but it has to hit rock bottom before the spenders (liberals) wake up. It really is OK to spend less and stop micromanaging everything.
Please post this on NextDoor neighbor. We read this thorough report and it could cause residents to shake in their boots. New construction is going on and being occupied. Is this growth going to help this situation?
Michael Thompson: Construction contributed only 17% of the city’s general tax revenues in 2023. The big projects are done. I did share this on Nextdoor. You can also share it. People need to know. Thank you.
Many of us knew this was coming. The people in PT need to wake up and elect some commonsense people. Not too likely in reality.
Thanks Jim for another reality check article. You just put into words what I’ve been thinking for the last few years, on actually two points.
I laughed when you pointed out the “word salad” we’ve been reading in all the City newsletters. Always positive language without any details or specifics.
And any person who has ever run a business knows how important a functional budget is. I’ve been wondering how this City Council can prioritize the UNAFFORDABLE pet pool project over all the degrading infrastructure issues.
I say:
NO POOL TAX, GO SWIM IN A POTHOLE
Here is the secret to the word salads Mauro and those who employ him come up with.
https://www.bullshitgenerator.com/
At the push of a button all is easily confused, I mean explained, I mean confused.
It’s just this easy to string a few cowpies of thought together “All we need to do is strategize user-centric infomediaries using cutting-edge applications to facilitate transparent infrastructures, synthesize proactive models, and scale end-to-end initiatives”.
See y’all in Port Hadlock around March when renovations are done at our new location. Thanks once again to Jim Scarantino.
Public servants these days are not on the public payroll.
911 and The Global War On Terror (GWOT), 2008 melt down, domestic lock down, transgender ideology policies, and all manner of cancel and censoring appear to be the macro level stepping stones we are now experiencing locally. No amount of common sense seems to override this woke lingo and the subsequent governance style that relies on “exciting” reports from the manager.
About the budget: The city “subsidizes” the pool, a community asset, an appropriate use of public funds. The city leases Mt. View from the school district. I assume such a lease agreement includes maintenance and repair of the facility. Before the YMCA contract in 2020 to manage the pool, the city put in about $200,000 per year and the pool fees generated around $250,000 per year. What the city did not do was properly plan to maintain and upgrade the pool facilities although the 2020 Parks Plan provides a thorough overview of projected maintenance and improvements. Parks and recreation are a public benefit for beauty, health and pleasure. There are many volunteers now and more possibilities to help in hard times to steward these irreplaceable assets.
Regarding the financials: My theory is that ambitious Mauro and staff will be using city assets to try to keep things solvent; operating somewhat like the IMF when it makes loans to nations the collateral is raw resources and assets. The 58 acre golf course lease has been amended in part to refer to “housing” rather than “affordable housing” to be underway by 2030 on golf course land. This will be a very fat real estate deal – selling the community’s assets – for high-end housing with view and golf course park land in the back yard. Selling off Cherry St land will generate a million or two. There is the ugly stepsister reservoir up on Morgan Hill – big bucks real estate. And there are the unknown knowns. Just saying.
Great article Jim. For me, the underlying theme here is that arrogance, greed, and incompetence seem to be the traits of those who are predominantly responsible for governing our lives. There are those, however, who lead responsibly and who are not self-serving. These compassionate, selfless leaders try every day to do what is best for the citizens.
It is up to us to seek these leaders out and to support them. We must encourage more people to get involved. The health and viable future of our community depends on us giving this civil support to those who do now and will in the future govern us that still care. These leaders exist on both/ all sides of the political spectrum.
What your article expresses, and what is happening here in Port Townsend, is a microcosm for what is happening nationally. We must be active in supplementing leaders in our community and nation who are compassionate towards fulfilling and ensuring the fundamental needs and rights of the citizens. Governance in a fiscally responsible way qualifies as one of those needs and rights.
Thank-you Jim and to the hard-working staff at the Port Townsend Free Press for helping us to be informed and enlightened as to the goings-on in our community. Happy Holidays to you and the staff. Keep up the good work!
My main thoughts about this article agree with Mark Grant’s suggestion that we identify, support and put new leadership into government offices. On November 7, voter turnout was just 44.14% and four Port Townsend city council incumbents ran unchallenged. So, David Faber, Amy Howard, Monica MickHager and Owen Rowe get to serve another term as the fiscal cliff gets closer and closer. Steve King, city of Port Townsend Public Works Director, is speaking up objectively regarding the need for growth and the impending threat to the city’s future of continuous unwillingness to address the condition of Port Townsend’s roads. Let’s get together across the city of Port Townsend and Jefferson County and build a bench of new leadership. I’m in.
Jim Scarantio documents via empty storefronts, B&O tax revenue and utility accounts that businesses do seem to be on the downward spiral. As most know business access limited by illegal all day parking has been on my radar as a business owner for over 10 years. Every missed sale adds up. Orwell said if you turn your cheek the slaps get harder and harder. Lots of cheek turning here over the years.
In the email reply to me below from Appointed Mayor Faber it is claimed that there are staff shortfalls and budget limitations that prevent any fix to the manufactured problem that benefits the real estate interests in town. There is money for a very expensive PR person and more, and budget for flawed pool studies where another town was substituted for PT.
Faber mentions my business being up. That is due to more custom work done out of my Port Hadlock location that I am moving to. PT sales numbers are way down so I am leaving.
Explaining Faber and the kind-
1) Intellectual dishonesty is a term used to describe intentionally committed fallacies in debates and reasoning. It refers to the advocacy of a position known to be false, which is misused to advance an agenda or reinforce one’s deeply held beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence contrary.
2) The concept of normalization of deviance was first identified within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”). American sociologist Diane Vaughan defines the “normalization of deviance” as “the gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behavior is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm for the organization.”
Faber Sez-
“Harvey, I wish we had capacity to change parking in downtown Port Townsend, but staff capacity is limited and business seems to be booming despite inaction, so while free and unlimited parking isn’t anywhere close to my idea of the best policy, I can’t really see why it should be a key priority. I’m reminded of Bordeaux, where the downtown business district screamed and cried that pedestrianization would ruin business, and yet business has boomed there in the wake of their elimination of all downtown parking . It makes me think that the economic effect of car parking is grossly overestimated in downtown business districts, and if your claims are correct (that cars are left blocking the parking spaces in front of your shop, yet you’ve never had more economic success), then I am left with only one, inescapable conclusion: your anger and fear is misplaced, and shouldn’t rise to the level of emergent policy action.”
My checks to the city for B&O tax and water/sewer have noted on the “for” line “corrupted government” and “Mauro vacation” Cashed of course. Tiny acts of rebellion/honesty feel good.
Folks like Judy Caruso and Mark Grant could be organizing to lobby Council not to appoint Faber again. Of course you would get Wennstom,or Rowe. Meet the new boss……
Inspiration from 1978 Czechoslovakia where diversity of opinion was even less welcome than in 2023 Port Townsend.
In “The Power of the Powerless”, Václav Havel describes the conditions that made working within the system impossible. His solution was Václav Benda’s parallel structures: “… from a parallel information network to parallel forms of education (private universities), parallel trade unions, parallel foreign contacts, to a kind of hypothesis on a parallel economy. On the basis of these parallel structures, he (Benda) then develops the notion of a “parallel polis” or state or, rather, he sees the rudiments of such a polis in these structures.”
Sometimes, working outside the system is the best option. There are many good reasons why you don’t see candidate choices on your ballot – a subject for another time, another place.
Many of the Czech dissidents eventually went on to positions in a reformed government.
The Power of the Powerless is free at:
https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/1979/01/the-power-of-the-powerless.pdf
I am truly shocked that an adult in a city position, knowing full well the numbers are not there to support building a pool, lacked self control and just fell short of saying “build it and they will come”. Of course these folks will be long gone from office when all the fund shortages hit the fan. I always wonder how they manage their family money when so complacent about the city’s!
Why turn out to vote when no one runs against the incumbents that got us in this mess, and seek to perpetuate the problem?
I suggest we deal with the City streets by posting signs at the City limits: “End of County maintained roads, proceed at your own risk”
Let me see, the local council and government is more concerned about a swimming pool than planning for the global climate catastrophe which will deprive the city and the surrounding areas of water and power. Am I the only person that realizes that in 5-10 years our principal source of fresh water (the glacial fed Big Quil) will be largely gone. Nor is anyone thinking about the collapse of the regional power grid due to the disappearance of the Cascade glaciers. This is the equivalent to putting a new coat of paint on a house with a collapsing foundation. We really need to be focusing on building a water desalinization facility and developing solar, wind and tidal power generation, Folks need to get their heads out of the sand and stop fussing about window dressing. In 10 years people will be thinking about drinking the pool water because dust will be coming out of their taps.
There’s a pothole near me that would be a lower cost alternative to the pool; just needs to be a little deeper and wider. Great idea!
Yep. He deployed this tactic on us over the poplars. I thought the word was flim flam so looked it up: “What is a synonym for Flim Flam?
As a noun, flim-flam can also mean a piece of nonsense. Similar words are balderdash, baloney, bosh, bunk, bunkum, codswallop, drivel, hogwash, hokum, hooey, poppycock, rubbish, tommyrot, and twaddle.” Seems about right!
What you are seeing is THE END of the Central Banking System/Fiat Currency… This problem is in every City and every County in the country,, in every part of the Western World… Globalism got defeated yet it is still fighting back…
COVID Theater mitigated all the liabilities,,, totally bankrupted the corporation and destroyed the system,,, exposed everything and everybody individually…
Now soon enough we have a BIG change coming,,, an equalization and re shuffling,,, status,,, and value of today wont matter in the future…
The Globalists are not done fighting,, not done trying to maintain themselves and control even though its already over… Desperation,,, desperate acts coming… They will burn the entire house down with themselves inside before they are finished so keep your eyes open…
If we want to understand the history of the current fiscal disaster facing PT one only needs to look to the hiring of David Timmons the first city manager (czar) who in addition to total ignorance of the history and culture of the city came with a history of fiscal recklessness. The idea of having a city manager without a strong mayor is a recipe for fiscal disaster. The bureaucracy needs to have an elected mayor who calls the shots, otherwise the bureaucracy feathers its own nest, taxpayer be damned, Whereas we had an economy supported by the maritime industries, the mill, and local small businesses Timmons wanted to turn PT into Sausalito north and focus on making a jolly good place for wealthy outsiders to invest in real estate while driving the locals out. Much of this was accomplished by the use of grants (as though they aren’t tax dollars), A big chunk of the debt revolved around building the grossly overpriced annex in prime downtown real estate rather than locating it, the police, and the fire department in a unified facility in the financially strapped business park on the hill. We’ll see how good that idea was when we’re forced to spend billions trying to stave off the rising sea levels that by 2050 will be regularly flooding downtown. We will be paying for boats to bring the workforce to work.
Hold on to your hats folks, global climate change is coming much faster that predicted and we are in very serious trouble. Maybe we should rename sunny PT: Timmons Folly…
John, you were really doing great until the climate change rant. Stick with the politics, you’ve got that nailed.
Port Townsend has both limited leadership and financial capacity. It needs to determine its priorities and standards for meeting those and then work on those things only.