The City of Coatesville makes Phoenixville look like the Main Line. Thanks to the City and its Council for alloing our budget process to look like complete sanity. Check this out

My favorite parts:

Under questioning by Simpson, McKensie said this is because the accounting software vendor, Dallas Systems, never trained city employees on how to use the software. He said the city has been paying consultants from Dallas Systems to input the finance data — this, according to Walker, is part of why the city is expected to have paid $40,000 in computer consulting fees by the end of the year.

And

Simpson was skeptical of the amount of money the finance department projected would be collected through permit fees in 2009. While the 2008 budget projected $870,650 in income from permits, only $233,072 was collected in the first eight months of the year. However, the 2009 budget projects $990,000 in permit income.