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The North State Breakdown Episode 39 – The Audacity of Audette
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Redding City Council member Tenessa Audette says the City's finances aren’t what they seem. In a 154-page report, she alleges overstated revenues, shrinking reserves, and federal relief funds used to hide structural gaps.
City officials say the budget is sound. Audette says the numbers tell a different story.
Now, with Measure A (the proposed one-cent sales tax) on the ballot this November 4, the debate has become a question of trust.
Watch the full breakdown of the report, the city’s response, and what’s at stake in the vote.
Transcript:
Welcome to the North State Breakdown with Benjamin Nowain. Today, I'd like to discuss Reading City Council Member Tenessa Audette and her investigation into Redding City budget and the debate it sparked across the community. Back in August, Audette released a 154-page document titled Reading Budget Findings.
She said the numbers in the city financial reports simply didn't add up. Her claim was that revenues were being overstated, reserves were quietly slipping below policy levels, and one-time federal relief money was being used to hide ongoing costs. In her own words:
Tenessa Audette
How we got here, it basically started in March of this year during a budget workshop. I thought I understood where our finances stood, but I was wrong. And the city manager shifted the narrative. And I started to ask questions, a lot of questions, like actual numbers for the last 18 months, which I couldn't find anywhere. And basically, I got shut down.
That statement set off weeks of arguments from city hall to social media.
Quote from Mike Mangus KRCR Report July 28th 2025
Redding City Council Member Tenessa Audette has spent literally months going over the last several years of city budgets, and she says the numbers just don't add up. The dining room of her home, every square inch of the counter and a table, along with much of the wall, is covered with paperwork and graphs. She called in retired city finance director Denise Maxwell to check her work.
Among their concerns, reserves are not healthy, there's a lack of transparency, and money from the proposed 1% sales tax initiative would be used to fill budget gaps, and not for the intended purpose.
City officials pushed back hard, saying the budget was sound and fully compliant with the city's 10% reserve rule.
City Manager Barry Tippin - Quote from KRCR July 28th 2025
Yeah, city reserves are very healthy. I think if you look at our standards, right, before 2019, it was a 5% reserve requirement. Today, we have a 10%. So in modern times, we're more healthy than we've ever been. Now, we are lower than we were a couple years ago, but that was by design and by plan. So our reserves are very healthy at 10%.
After two months of growing tensions, the council called a special meeting on October 22, 2025, a meeting meant to address Audette's claims once and for all. What happened in that room, and the arguments that followed, reveal how complicated the truth can be when politics and numbers meet. Financial director Greg Robinett took the podium first.
His message was calm, but firm.
Redding City Finance Director Greg Robinett
I thought this quote was powerful from council policy 412, which I believe to be a great council policy, is the budget decisions today will have an impact on city's future, and not only what is accomplished, but what resources are available in the future. It is important to know what the 10-year plan is not. The 10-year plan is not amended for the actual results of revenue and expenses, and it is not amended for total amended, including carryovers and other items allowed by council policy, such as rolling stock, the equipment replacement fund, and carryovers, as I mentioned.
Then he walked the council through the slides that answered to Tenessa Audette's biggest claims one by one. It was less of a clash of personalities, and more of a contest over what the numbers really meant.
1. Council Was Kept in the Dark
Audette said the city's financial information came in too late and filtered.
Tenessa Audette
I really have realized that I can no longer accept the city manager's narrative at face value. Council doesn't even see agenda items most of the time until the Thursday night before the Tuesday meeting. That gives us just five days to read hundreds of pages, meet with staff, answer constituents, and prepare to vote.
Redding City Finance Director Greg Robinett
We update the 10-year plan, and that happens, budget actuals happen four times a year for a total of eight over the course of the two-year budget cycle, and the 10-year plan is typically updated two times a year or four times over the course of the budget cycle. Finally, we move into our annual audit process and the preparation of our annual comprehensive financial report, or ACFR. This is basically our final audited financial information. It uses different bases of accounting depending on what page you're on in the book, and it's a very complex process, and I always thank the finance team for their hard work on that process.
2. Reserves Fell Below Policy
In her budget findings, Audette wrote that actual cash reserves had dipped to 7.2%, well below the required 10%. She said this violated council policy and wasn't disclosed before the budget was adopted.
Tenessa Audette
So when it comes to this year's budget, I believe that our ending cash balance is going to be $7.9 million, which they told us it was going to be, and they're saying our start is going to be nine. Well, those should be the same number. So that starts us off a lot lower than what we thought as far as what's in our savings account.
Robinett reported that the short-term swings are normal. By fiscal year end, reserves recover above the 10% target.
Redding City Finance Director Greg Robinett
So first, the 10-year plan does begin below 10%, and through surpluses or a balanced budget in FY26 and FY27, the cash will be rebuilt above the 10%. But importantly, when people speak of a balanced budget in common vernacular, they mean revenues relative to expenses.
He noted that the third quarter report showing a dip was released later only because the staff turnover and the compressed budget schedule. But that explanation did little to quiet those who felt misled.
3. Raises in Staffing Drained the Budget
Audette's report detailed a 35% rise in payroll costs since 2020, blaming market rate raises and new hires. She warned that the city locked in long-term obligations on short-term revenue.
Tenessa Audette
The city gave across-the-board raises to every bargaining unit and executive staff. And they weren't small adjustments. They averaged 20%. Many raises were 30% and 40%. And the overall personnel costs all the way across the board rose by 35% between 2020 and 2024.
It's worth remembering how we got here. In September of 2023, the Redding City Council approved a round of executive pay adjustments. During that meeting, Council Member Tenessa Audette spoke in favor of the raises.
Tenessa Audette - City Council Meeting September 5th 2023
These are the hard decisions that leaders make is that when we have these issues and we're approving raises that at some point it's going to reach the top and we have to make those hard decisions to keep the people in place that we want.
The measure passed with only one council member voting no. Audette's reasoning then that paying competitive wages help retain qualified employees is the same argument city staff use today to defend those very decisions. Robinette emphasized that many of the new positions were funded by utility fees or grants, not by the general fund.
Redding City Finance Director Greg Robinett
Expenditures, the charts on page 70 and 71, it's important to point out they include the general grants fund. This is another opportunity in future budget cycles. We'll likely have a separate chart so that this is very clear which funds or which items are part of the general fund grants and then so that it's very clear why they're not included in the 10-year plan.
Still, residents watching saw the bigger picture: more administrators, fewer patrol officers. That disconnect fueled online debates for weeks.
4. ARPA Funds Covered Structural Gaps
Audette accused the city of using federal COVID relief dollars to prop up ongoing payroll, creating what she called a temporary fix with permanent costs.
Tenessa Audette
And to make room for all those raises, police and fire positions were pushed onto temporary grants like ARPA and SAFER, leaving those jobs unsustainable once the money that came from the outside grants ran out.
The city's October report backed them up, showing every ARPA dollar audited with no findings. But the optics were tough. Grant-funded police and firefighter jobs disappearing just as public concern about safety was rising.
5. Inflated Revenue Forecasts
Audette traced the city's trouble back to 2022, when the staff increased 10-year sales tax projections mid-cycle.
Tenessa Audette
Inflated revenues created the illusion of new money. And that illusion was used to justify permanent raises citywide, commitments based on projections that never came true.
Forecasts were based on two years of real growth. In other words, staff said the forecasts looked reasonable until the economy cooled in 2023.
Redding City Finance Director Greg Robinett
And some of the challenges in this process is revenues can be unpredictable. We've seen that particularly over the past probably three or four years with sales tax. And then, of course, there's always potential unknown expenditure pressures that could be lurking around the corner, especially when you're adopting a biennial budget that could happen due to inflation, union agreements, or additional service demands.
To Audette supporters, that sounded like excuse-making. To others, it was simply how long-range budgeting works.
As the meeting stretched into the evening, emotions stayed mostly restrained, but the divide was clear. Some residents applauded Audette for demanding answers. By the end of the night, both sides claimed victory. Audette had forced the city to answer tough questions.
City officials had publicly defended their integrity. But neither side had convinced the other. And hanging over all of it was one unresolved question—how to pay for what comes next.
Before we talk about that, let's check whether accountability is applied the same way when it isn't convenient. On April 9, 2024, Planning Commissioner Aaron Hatch said this from the dais:
Planning Commissioner Aaron Hatch - Redding City Planning Meeting April 9th 2024
And I just feel like that it's hard for me to see a way that it doesn't feel like staff was trying to, you know, kind of design a specific outcome by using, you know, avoid legal risks by having any of us planning commissioners speak.
A month later, Council Member Tenessa Audette put an item on the City Council agenda to address Hatch's comments.
Tenessa Audette - City Council Meeting May 7th 2024
This item is mine to put forward, so I'll be talking about it. There won't be a staff report, it'll be me, but doing what I'm doing out of the duty and responsibility that I feel that I have. For the last 17 months, I have been the liaison to the Planning Commission.
She also argued that staff had been pulled into an unusual amount of back and forth with Hatch.
Tenessa Audette - City Council Meeting May 7th 2024
In September, there were group meetings with commissioners to talk about things, but with Aaron Hatch, there was a one-on-one meeting with staff to talk about his specific repeated concerns and all the amendments and changes that he had asked for, and they were happy to do it. They wanted to accommodate him, they wanted to work with him, they wanted to make it work.
She then characterized Hatch's April 9th statement as an accusation of corruption from the chair and asked the Council to respond.
Tenessa Audette - City Council Meeting May 7th 2024
And then on the 9th, you know, instead of talking to all of them, after 14 months of working together with the staff and them accommodating him and changing things and compromising and explaining and working with Commissioner Hatch every step of the way, he took this opportunity from the dais to publicly state that generally he assumes positive intent, but this time he feels that staff was trying to design a specific outcome. Given you have a Planning Commissioner as the chair from the dais, accusing staff of politely accusing them of doing something that's underhanded, corrupt, whatever word that you want to use.
The One-Cent Sales Tax Initiative
Here's why this matters to today's budget fight. Audette now says she's being admonished for asking tough questions, but when a Commissioner asked tough questions about process, she brought a Council item to admonish him, calling it a line-crossing accusation, flagging staff burden, and seeking a formal response. It appears like a double standard on scrutiny for who gets to do it.
The debate over Redding's budget didn't end in the Council chambers. It shifted to a bigger question: how the city will pay for public safety, roads, and parks in the years ahead.
That question now has a name—the one-cent sales tax initiative.
The citizen-sponsored measure would add one percent to every taxable sale in the city. It's a special tax, which means the money is legally locked into certain uses:
30 percent for roads and transportation
13 percent for fire services
12 percent each for the Redding Police Department and the Shasta County Sheriff's Office jail agreement
9 percent for city parks
9 percent for northern riverfront facilities like the Civic Auditorium and the Rodeo Grounds
5 percent for the Redding Regional Airport
10 percent discretionary for the Council's budget process
Those percentages can't be changed without another public vote for the first five years. After that, any shifts inside a category require a four-fifths Council vote.
The ordinance also creates a citizen's advisory committee and requires annual independent audits made public at open meetings. But Tenessa Audette warned that the tax might become a backdoor fix for mismanaged finances.
Tenessa Audette - KRCR interview July 28th 2025
So when this new solution of a sales tax come, my concern is that it's not going to give the people all of these amazing amenities. It's really just going to plug a very deep hole that we have dug ourselves into.
Her argument is simple: if the city inflated revenue projections and drained reserves, voters shouldn't reward that behavior with a permanent tax increase. She wants structural reform before revenue.
City officials pushed back just as firmly. Finance Director Greg Robinette and City Manager Barry Tippin both said that the initiative can't be used to fill general fund gaps.
City Manager Barry Tippin - KRCR interview July 28th 2025
The sales tax, if it passes, has very specific categories it has to be spent on. Not to do so would be against the law.
To supporters like Council Member Mike Littau, the measure is less about patching the past and more about protecting the future.
At the end of all of this—the report, the rebuttal, the special meeting, and now this ballot measure, one thing is clear: Redding's argument isn't just about money.
It's about trust.
Tenessa Audette has spent months saying that public deserves honesty first and taxes later. Her supporters see her as a watchdog who finally asked the hard questions about a budget they were told was balanced.
City leaders insist those questions were answered in public workshops, audited reports, and a decade of clean financial awards. To them, this entire dispute shows how easily perception can eclipse process. Both stories have power.
Audette's story warns that short-term optimism and hidden assumptions can erode public confidence. The City's story reminds voters that responsible management sometimes looks like dull consistency: workshops, spreadsheets, and forecasts no one reads until there's a controversy.
Now the one-cent tax has become the test. A yes vote would give the City a dedicated stream for roads, safety, parks, locked behind legal restrictions and citizen audits. A no vote would force City Hall to keep cutting and stretching what's left.
Either way, the decision will say less about the numbers and more about how much faith Redding has in the people adding them up.
And that's the breakdown.
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