The 411 on LGPI (Jack Bog's Blog)

Last week, we noted that the City of Portland was hiring an outfit called Local Government Personnel Institute (LGPI) to help with the city's negotiations with the firefighters' union. We asked some pointed questions about what kind of organization this LGPI was. This state has way too many unsupervised pots of public money, and we were concerned that we had stumbled upon another one.

We sent an e-mail request to Diana Moffat, the head honcho of LGPI, asking for its basic organizational documents and any financial statements it might have. She promptly sent them along, and they're pretty sleepy. Here is the intergovernmental agreement under which it operates, and its last two audited financial statements are here and here.

Apparently, LGPI has been around since 1971, although the agreement we received was dated in April of 2005 and shows that it was revised in December of 2004. It is described by its auditors as a joint venture between the League of Oregon Cities and the Association of Oregon Counties. The latter two organizations describe themselves in the agreement as joint "departments" of the state's cities and counties, who are authorized to create them by Oregon Revised Statutes 190.010 and following.

LGPI had annual revenue last year of about $615,000, the same as two years before; the year in between saw revenue of about $650,000. Its biggest expense is for personal services -- $515,000 last year, up from $467,000 two years before. It had $96,000 in the bank last June 30, and no long-term debt.

Its auditors say that LGPI is not subject to the state's local budget law. But its employees do get PERS pensions, and some level of health care benefits.

Comments (7)

Its a refreshing change to see folks at an entity like this actually sending out documents quickly by E mail and not, like the City of Portland or Mult Co, playing games with the Public Recods Act and asking upfront for $$$$ for staff time to do research, or for copying costs.

Give credit where its due.

Posted by Nonny Mouse | May 23, 2011 10:33 AM

"its employees do get PERS pensions,"

SO you have public employees negotiating with public employees. Besides being self-serving, it should be a short negotiation.

When does someone who represents the boss (i.e. us long-suffering taxpayers) get represented in the negotiations?

Posted by Steve | May 23, 2011 10:41 AM

Steve, we as taxpayers pay them to think up shenanigan entities like this. Good for Jack to have unearthed another great under the radar scam.

Posted by Old Shep | May 23, 2011 10:47 AM

Yes Shep, another great under the radar scam that insures those hired are Kool Aid drinkers.

Posted by Abe | May 23, 2011 10:59 AM

Steve: The real scandal is that all the judges who rule on PERS cases are PERS beneficiaries themselves.

Posted by Garage Wine | May 23, 2011 11:32 AM

Kool Aid types are brought in on committees to make sure the result goes with "the plan." . . and if for some reason the committee folks just can't agree, just ignore their months of work and/or start another committee.

Posted by clinamen | May 23, 2011 11:50 AM

And then to dumb it down one more level, the "committees" are renamed as Charettes to glamourize them and dupe people to spend a boring afternoon continuing "the plan".

The sheeple are catching on. Having LGPI negotiating PERS is a farce.

Posted by lw | May 23, 2011 1:07 PM

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Monday, May 23, 2011

The 411 on LGPI

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