First, it's important to understand that dispatcher training takes six months.

As to the claims: Billings correctly states the city has authorized 31 trained dispatcher positions, including full-time and reserve or part-time dispatchers, but not all of those positions are currently filled and not all of Provo's dispatchers have completed training.

Bailey is right when he says the city doesn't have that many trained dispatchers on duty, but he doesn't point out that he was talking only about full-time dispatchers.

To strip the arguments down to an apples-to-apples comparison, start with the fact Provo has 21 full-time regular dispatcher positions. One of those positions is open. Bottom line— of the 20 full-time dispatchers on staff, 16 have completed training.

The Billings campaign also spread this message: "Provo's total fund balance is at a historic high "with more than $65 million currently in reserve."

This may be the most confusing topic addressed during the campaign, with the candidates ridiculing each other about it during televised debates.

Boiled down, total fund balance can be a good measuring stick of a city's overall fiscal health, Provo finance director John Borget said. However, both sides probably should be careful when they use the term "rainy-day funds" to refer to that $65 million, which is actually split between a large number of very different funds.

Many of these assets — the balance includes expected short-term income and inventory — are being held back in case of an economic downturn, so "rainy day" applies in that sense. But much of it is also earmarked for future projects and some of it is untouchable. For example, tax dollars raised specifically for the library cannot legally be transferred to another budget area or for any project unrelated to the library.

Transferring money between these funds can be problematic. Some transfers are possible but might delay planned projects or destabilize the affected funds.

Here is a piece of information put out by the third-party group, Utahns for a Better Future: "Your City Council has provided . . . Multiple Cover-ups of City Failures."

This claim comes from an unknown group that lists only a post office box for an address. It makes three claims on a postcard sent out to only a portion of Provo, and two of the claims take liberties with newspaper articles or editorials.

The first is a repeat offense on the misleading 27 percent increase in violent crime. Instead of citing the FBI report, it cites the June Deseret Morning News article which showed the statistic they cite is misleading.

The other claim of "multiple cover-ups of city failures" refers to a Sept. 23 article about iProvo in the Deseret Morning News and a May 23 Daily Herald editorial about the death of Scott Aston. Neither paper used the word "cover-up" or "failure."

Here's tthe link to the Deseret Morning News story: deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,615152419,00.html.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com