The Morongo Valley Community Services District Board of Directors held a special meeting last night to review four different options for the district’s proposed $800,000 budget for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. As discussions on employee salaries were brought up, tempers began to flare. Reporter Andrew Dieleman has the details…
The Morongo Valley CSD Board of Directors went into extensive discussions on budget salaries and stipends at last night’s budget meeting, including arguments over past compensation for Fire Chief Gary Yearsley and the legality and budget impact of combining the district’s fire chief and general manager positions into one director of operations position. One argument between President Gayl Swarat and Director Johnny Tolbert nearly prompted Swarat to end the meeting early.
After lengthy discussion, the board chose to create a finance committee to introduce a fifth budget option that will add additional financial planning to the future of the CSD. The board will discuss the option during its regular meeting on July 15 to finalize the budget during its regular meeting on August 19.
The board also went into closed session for nearly two hours to conference regarding labor negotiations, reporting back that it had fully reviewed the district’s MOU with the fire department, which will now go to the labor union for review.
During public comment for the budget workshop, some Morongo Valley residents accused Vice President Kristina brook of being in financial conflict of interest with the CSD since she owns a grant-writing company (K&M Enterprises) that does business with the CSD. Brook firmly stated that her company has always donated its time to write grants for the CSD and has never made a profit from any grant-writing project related to the CSD.
