New ‘Somewhere Method’ allows elected officials to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars without identifying anything they actually want cut
MANDEVILLE — After weeks of searching for ways to reduce city spending, Councilman-at-Large Scott Discon has unveiled a groundbreaking new approach to municipal finance that allows elected officials to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars from a budget without identifying a single thing they actually want cut.
Known informally as the “Somewhere Method,” the system begins with a city council member deciding how much money the city should stop spending. Determining where that money will come from is then delegated to someone who works there.
The approach could dramatically simplify government budgeting, which traditionally involves the tedious process of examining individual expenditures during the budget hearing process, determining which are unnecessary and voting to reduce or eliminate them.
Under the Somewhere Method, none of that is required.
“We should be saving some money somewhere,” Discon said during an Aug. 13 budget hearing.
City officials initially believed “somewhere” referred to a specific location within the proposed FY2027 operating budget.
It did not.
Councilman unveils revolutionary budget plan: Cut $300,000 from ‘somewhere’
After promising to develop a list of potential savings, Discon returned to subsequent budget hearings but acknowledged he could not identify any major operating expenses that should be eliminated.
“I don’t see where we could make any big change,” he said Aug. 19.
That apparent obstacle was overcome during the council’s final budget hearing Aug. 27, when Discon discovered that identifying actual expenditures was unnecessary.
Instead, he proposed simply removing $300,000.
“It’s just a general $300,000,” Discon explained when pressed for details.
The breakthrough immediately eliminated one of the most difficult parts of city budgeting: knowing what the city will no longer purchase.
Economists said the implications could extend far beyond Mandeville.
Rather than spending months debating appropriations, Congress could theoretically balance the federal budget by subtracting several trillion dollars from the bottom of a spreadsheet and asking the executive branch to work out the particulars.
City creates ‘Department of You Figure It Out’
Asked which operating expenses should be reduced to produce the $300,000 savings, Discon explained that determining what to cut should be left to the administration.
“It’s up to the administration to figure out how they wanna divvy that up amongst their line items,” he said.
“I don’t wanna be the one to make that decision.”
City officials subsequently established the Department of You Figure It Out, a new administrative division responsible for determining what elected officials intended after they have finished voting.
The department’s duties will include locating unspecified savings, identifying expenditures council members meant to eliminate but did not identify, and translating phrases such as “generally,” “somewhere” and “you know what I mean” into generally accepted accounting principles.
Its proposed mission statement reads simply:
“Whatever they meant.”
Funding for the new department has not been identified but is expected to come from somewhere.
Officials confirm operating and capital budgets remain on separate pieces of paper
The Somewhere Method encountered another complication when Discon suggested capital spending reductions as a way to offset recurring employee salary increases.
Planning Director Cara Bartholomew attempted to explain that the city’s operating and capital budgets are separate.
“You have to stay in the same piece of paper,” Bartholomew told him.
City officials have since confirmed through extensive testing that this is true.
Finance employees reportedly placed the operating budget on one side of a conference table and the capital budget on the other, removed $300,000 from the capital document and waited approximately 45 minutes.
No money appeared in the operating budget.
A second experiment produced the same result.
Officials are now developing a mandatory training program for elected officials tentatively titled “The Two Pieces of Paper.”
The introductory course will teach participants how to distinguish between money used for recurring expenses, such as employee salaries, and money used for one-time capital expenditures.
An advanced course, “Next Year Is Another Year,” will address why eliminating a one-time drainage project does not permanently finance an employee’s annual salary.
Officials stressed that participants must successfully complete The Two Pieces of Paper before enrolling in Somewhere II.
Search continues for $300,000 believed hiding somewhere in city budget
Meanwhile, an intensive search for the $300,000 entered its second week Wednesday.
City employees have searched departmental budgets, filing cabinets, desk drawers and several suspicious-looking spreadsheets.
Public Works crews checked storm drains.
Mandeville police searched underneath the council dais.
Finance employees used Ctrl+F to search the proposed budget for “$300,000,” “somewhere” and “general.”
Nothing has been recovered.
Discon nevertheless remained confident the money exists.
“I don’t have to back it up with anything more than the fact that I think we’re still overspending,” he said during the final hearing.
Officials said that statement represents another important component of the Somewhere Method known as Presumptive Appropriation Theory, under which the existence of unnecessary spending can be established by believing strongly that unnecessary spending exists.
The technique eliminates the antiquated accounting requirement that numbers correspond to other numbers.
Discon supports employee raise, votes against employees receiving it
The chairman demonstrated another innovation later that evening.
Discon joined the council in voting to increase the proposed employee cost-of-living adjustment from 1% to 2.8%.
He then voted against the operating budget containing the 2.8% raise.
Municipal scholars initially believed the two votes were contradictory but later determined they represented an advanced application of what is now being called the “Discon Doctrine.”
Under the doctrine, an elected official may support a government expenditure while simultaneously opposing the legislation necessary for the government to make that expenditure.
The doctrine could significantly expand the range of positions available to elected officials.
A council member could support road construction while voting against purchasing asphalt, support police officers while opposing police payroll, or support Christmas while voting against Dec. 25.
Asked whether the doctrine could eventually permit a council member to vote both for and against the same budget simultaneously, researchers said the mathematics remain theoretical, citing the “Schrödinger’s Budget” thought experiment.
City officials nevertheless praised the council for ultimately adopting the FY2027 budget and ending weeks of hearings.
At press time, the missing $300,000 had still not been located, although investigators said they remain confident it is somewhere… or perhaps nowhere, simultaneously.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Mandevillain normally fabricates quotations attributed to elected officials for satirical purposes. In this story, we did not. Every quote attributed to an elected or city official above is real and was taken directly from Mandeville’s FY2027 budget hearings. We saw no reason to interfere — the resulting comedy practically wrote itself.
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