Want to get a look at the mad, mad world of City of Manteca cost recovery?

Four Manteca Unified District high school golf teams used the Manteca Golf Course as their home course in 2019 for matches as well as their practice course.

Apparently the high schools have various degrees of negotiation skills or else the city is as inconsistent as one can possibly be.

But before we get into which high school got taken to the cleaners and which high school has favorite status with the city, let’s revisit a little thing called “quid pro quo.”

The Latin phase means “something for something.” It is used in English to describe the exchange of goods and services with no money changing hands.

The City of Manteca and Manteca Unified School District entered into an agreement a number of years ago to use that approach when the city used school district facilities and vice versa. The school district kept its word. They have not charged the city for use of their facilities since the deal was struck. Too bad the same can’t be said for the City of Manteca.

They have charged the school district for use of the senior center and transit center. But perhaps the most egregious violation of the quid pro quo agreement was the golf course where creative bookkeeping on the city’s part over the years has nicely masked from the taxpayers the true cost of running the course.

At the same time previous city administrators have tried to use the golf course as a cash cow to impose a 25 percent recovery charge for general municipal administration on top of city garbage, water, and sewer bills

So much for the glorious past of the golf course that at one point prompted a previous council to write off more than $1 million in loans that were made to the golf course from the general fund on the premise they would be repaid in order to mollify golf course critics.

Let’s look at how the city today is using the golf course to renege on promises to the taxpayers. By any sane person’s definition, promising the Manteca Unified you’d honor a quid pro quo agreement is a promise to the city’s taxpayers given they also represent almost 80 percent of the school district taxpayers.

This year, the golf course charged and received payment from the school district general fund and various associated student body accounts the following amounts for use of the city golf course: Lathrop High, $1,000; Manteca High, $650; East Union High, $2,103.13 (includes golf bag charges); and Sierra High, $1,500. 

Remember that no money was supposed to exchange hands but the district paid the city $5,253.13. At first the issue might seem to be that the school district didn’t communicate to school sites that they were not supposed to pay city bills for use of facilities. Also it would seem the city didn’t bother to get word out to the golf course they weren’t supposed to bill for school district use.

While that is a problem it’s nothing compared to the wild fluctuations in charges. Since 2011 Sierra High has been charged double to triple what Manteca High is charged for using the golf course. The worst year was 2013 when Sierra High got dinged $4,265.83 and Manteca High paid only $1,500.

Lathrop High used the Union Road course as its home course for the first time ever this year. Lathrop paid $1,000. That’s significantly less than the $2,103.13 East Union paid. And although the quid pro agreement did not differentiate on use of Manteca Unified of city facilities based on whether the students were city residents or not under the quid pro quo deal, it might be interesting to note golf course rates generally charge non-city residents 10 percent more yet East Union students who almost all reside in Manteca where charged roughly double what non-city residents in Lathrop were charged.

And don’t insult the taxpayers by saying the golf pro runs the course. Ninety percent of all green fees collected go to the city so you could easily argue that of almost every dollar charged, 90 percent went directly to the city. The quid pro quo deal didn’t carve out any exceptions for use of the golf course so whether only 90 percent of the money went to the city is irrelevant. No money was supposed to be charged to the schools. Yet since 2011 the schools paid the city $50,195.28.

It gets worse.

When the school district discovered they were being charged when they weren’t supposed to be they questioned whether the city was following the agreement. What they really wanted was for the city to stop charging the school district for use of the golf course and other facilities as they agreed to not do.

The district decided it was time for full accounting to drive home the point that the city was benefiting from the deal better financially than the district and if the city simply stopped charging for things when they agreed not to the quid pro quo could remain in effect. The school district generated numbers — based on what they charge all organizations for use of their facilities  — from the 2017-2018 fiscal year that showed the city used $406,000 worth of school facilities. The city didn’t produce their own version of what charges would have even imposed had they billed the school district for use of city facilities.

Instead they set about on a scavenger hunt, if you will, to up-charge for school district use of municipal facilities. One figure they bantered about was the schools should have been charged $69,000 and not $5,253.13 for use of the golf course this year.

As anyone who has fought for the integrity of the golf course over the years can tell you, the city has always wanted to implement robust cost recovery fees.

This is the Manteca equivalent of Pandora’s Box. Whatever the city charges the school district whether it is on paper or in the form of a bill they expect to be paid, they’d better be recovering the same from every other golfer. If not, they are treating one class of citizens different than another. The same goes for cost recovery charges slapped on the district for use of playing fields and parks. If the city is kicking up field use charges based on “cost recovery” to pump up the value of facility use that the district receives from the city they are going to have to charge the same to local non-profits that use city facilities such as the Manteca Area Soccer League.

The City Council needs to step in now and not later and instruct staff to honor the quid pro quo agreement that means not to charge the district for use of city facilities so it is a real quid pro quo agreement.

If not taxpayers should demand that the quid pro quo deal be trashed given that the city is not honoring it and require that the schools and city pay for use of the other agency’s facilities.

Then, while the city is reeling from a $400,000 plus annual hit — roughly a $200,000 shortfall in facility use that they will have to cover plus $200,000 a year in community resource officers they will need to cover — taxpayers should demand the school district “claw back” $1.4 million they paid for two school resource officers over the course of seven years that voters directed had to be funded out of the half cent public safety tax approved in 2006.

Let everyone be clear on this point. This is not the school district negotiating in public.

This is about a government agency breaking not simply a sacred trust with the taxpayers and voters but an outright illegal disregard of a voter imposed mandate.

It’s pretty rich that local officials talk about the shenanigans in Sacramento and how they deceive taxpayers and disregard voter directives then they turn around and do the same exact thing.