A budget disaster nobody knew about

ROSAMILIA

I was going to stay up late last night and write something about the most inept, dysfunctional, indecisive Council in recent memory but I figured if they can just blow everything off so can I.

I’m not paid for this, however, and I don’t have nearly 50,000 people expecting me to write this column a few times a week. The nine members of the Council are paid to pass a responsible budget.

Hell, the Council president, Rodney Wiltshire, wasn’t even there to pass the budget – the single most important thing he is elected to do. And he was absent for the second year in a row.

I suppose I could have kicked off this column by saying “despite the administration’s best efforts” but that would just be laughable.

Of course, I’m referring to the Council’s decision to not vote on the mayor’s budget during a Finance Committee meeting. Actually, they didn’t vote on any budget and as such the mayor’s budget – which is $30,000 out of whack – goes into effect.

WIlTSHIRE

The Council also didn’t officially  
set a tax levy so if they don’t reconvene and do that, Trojans won’t have to pay any taxes in 2015. Maybe that’s why they did what they did. What politician would not get elected if he or she abolished taxes altogether.

It’s been a disaster right from the get-go. Let’s recap:

-The mayor’s budget, proposed in October, included deferring $1.9 million in pension costs from ’15 to ’16 and a $650,000 one-shot from the sale of the old city hall site on Monument Square. That means ’16 starts with a deficit of about $2.5 million.

-The ‘15 budget also includes $14,000 for a new dais to be permanently installed in the Council chambers in the building the city rents.  

-The state Comptroller came out with a report telling the city it could run a deficit as high as $800,000 in ’14 and if that projection comes true it could mean the city is back under the thumb of the Financial Control Board for the first time in nearly two decades.

-The state Comptroller, in his annual review of the budget, said the city spent $5.9 million more than it took in from 2011 through 2013. It made ends meet – and ignored the structural deficit – by syphoning off the water fund and spending money in the accounts reserved for capital projects, future contractual obligations and other unspecified but expected costs.

-The Council asks the mayor to see what it would look like if he cut 3 percent from each department.

-The mayor did and it included laying off 10 firefighters and five cops plus three civilians from the TPD.

-It took the Council all of seven minutes to say we aren’t cutting the Police of Fire departments and blamed the mayor for not coming up with another idea.

-The mayor – to his credit – didn’t blame the Council for not doing their job and making their own cuts or coming up with any ideas to raise revenues. Didn’t mean they did any of the things they are paid for, but at least the mayor took the high road and didn’t make the Council look any worse. Yes, it would have been possible.

-Some on the Council, though, did take their shots at the mayor but it rings hollow because nobody came up with any other ideas.

-Throughout it all, the mayor and the Council made a deer caught in the headlights look like a Rhodes Scholar and claim they had no idea the city’s financial picture was this bad. Yes, ignorance is bliss. Or maybe it is disguised by feral cats, shady demolition projects, cheap sidewalks, racial tension, solar energy, a tech committee and ribbon cuttings.

-Someone had to know and that someone is Acting Comptroller Joe Mazzariello. But, since he works for the mayor, the mayor had to know, and since the mayor is required by the Charter to give the Council quarterly financial updates the Council had to know.

-But nobody knows nothin’. Even the state Comptroller didn’t know. I looked at the budget reviews dating to ’09 and not one goes back three years like it did for ’15. Amazing, really, how things can fall through the cracks if you push it hard enough.

-And someone was pushing for four straight years – 2011-2014. But, sooner rather than later, the crack closes up and the all the stuff shoved in will explode like one of those spring loaded gag gifts. Except it’s not a joke. We are talking about the budget, here, and that impacts everyone living in the Collar City.