Markeshia Ricks Photo
Westville Alder Adam Marchand addresses Monday night’s Finance Committee meeting.
Alders put crossing guards and librarians back into the new city budget while taking out money from the schools in order to shore up finances, at a Finance Committee meeting Monday night.
The committee amended and then gave final approval to a $523.3 million city operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
The budget now goes before the full Board of Alders June 6 for final approval.
At a nearly three-hour meeting in City Hall, the Finance Committee rearranged funding for several of the priorities that Mayor Toni Harp had identified in her revised budget for next year that sought to absorb a last-minute $4.6 million shortfall in promised state funding.
Harp’s revised budget of $523.3 million — down from $525.3 million — had eliminated 17 of the 33 new positions that had originally been proposed back when she delivered the budget in February. Gone were seven crossing guards and a grants administrator and contracts coordinator for the police department. The budget calls for no mill rate increase on real estate and personal property and a 10 percent decrease on the mill rate on cars.
Alders Monday night voted to preserve the mayor’s priorities for the pared-down budget and approved amendments that allowed them to add nine of those eliminated positions back to the budget. They also moved more than $3 million in new cost savings into shoring up pension funding, medical benefits and the city’s rainy day fund.
“Our finance committee, after many hearings and spirited debates, acted to amend the budget in a fiscally responsible way to preserve core services for our residents and our children, maintain the current tax rate, and follow the advice of our auditors and the bond rating agencies by putting money in the pensions, medical, and the rainy day funds,” Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker said in a statement issued afterward.
Winners
Stephanie Addenbrooke Photo
City Librarian Brogan.
Some departments that had initially received the axe in the mayor’s revised budget got a reprieve Monday night. The committee added back in:
• Two librarian positions and a library technical assistant..
• A parks foreperson.
• Five new crossing guard positions.
Losers
Other departments, particularly a few that weren’t on the chopping block to begin with, got chopped:
• The city will have to try to hook a big fish to run the city’s Information Technology division with less bait: Alders eliminated a proposed $41,102 increase in salary for the future chief information officer.
• Alders took back a $20,000 raise that Youth Services Director Jason Bartlett received earlier this year, returning his salary back to $85,000.
• The future director of development and policy: Though the position is vacant now, the new director could be making significantly less than his or her predecessor. Alders initially wanted to lower the current salary from $116,000 to $86,000, then opted to fund the position at just $1 to force the administration back to the drawing board on that position.
• Alders also eliminated $225,000 from the capital fund budget for rolling stock for the health department, the Community Service Administration and the Board of Education.
Win Some, Lose Some
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Superintendent Garth Harries.
For some departments, winning and losing Monday night was relative.
• Committee alders approved a master lease, but not every department that was in line to get new rolling stock will get it. Alders reduced the master lease by $372,000, preserving the purchase of new vehicles for the police, fire and public works.
• The mayor had recommended that the city give the Board of Education a $4.55 million increase in its operating budget; alders had proposed only forking over $1 million of that money. Monday night, alders reached a compromise of providing $2 million instead. (Superintendent Garth Harries heard the news of the budget cut after his own five-hour board meeting and a subsequent executive session ended just before 1 a.m. The budget cut would “translate into reduced services, if it continues,” he said. “If anything, our students need more services, not less.”)
• After reallocating that money funds, alders voted to move the savings in a 30 – 30-40 percent split to invest in the city’s pension funding, its medical benefits account and its rainy day fund.
Annex Alder Alphonse Paolillo Jr. was successful in tacking on policy amendments that include:
• Requiring Corporation Counsel John Rose to provide proof of residency by Aug. 1 or risk not getting paid.
• Disallowing the purchase of vehicles for the chief of police and the assistant chiefs.
• Requiring alder approval for fire and police overtime over $1 million.
• Requiring alder approval for all memoranda of understanding that have an economic impact.
• Requiring the police chief to notify alders of the purchase of rolling stock and its intended use.
• Requiring police and fire departments and their commissions to adhere to requirements to post and notice meetings and minutes.
• Providing all plans to alders related to the shifting of the 1 Union Ave. lock up to Whalley Avenue.
Aliyya Swaby contributed to this report.
Walker's pre-fab statement is an insult to common sense taxpayers.