As part of
the overall befuddlement was the fact that the handout had no reference to the “City
Summer Youth” programs. That was corrected at the meeting and the original proposed
85K was increased with an unassigned 10K to 95K.
The Police
Salaries & Wages line was upped by $273,000.00 to $15,275,752.80 mainly due
to anticipated increase in overtime expense derived from the amount expended in
the first 5 months of this year. Department Director Hellwig had noted that the
Union’s Contract calls for 4 days on and
4 days off. If applied to the whole department that means that there is only
50% of the roster on duty at any one time and any absents must be covered by
overtime. He decried his lack of flexibility in scheduling. This contract has I
believe a year to run and any negotiations on the new contract will have to take
this detrimental clause into account.
Noted was
that most of the reductions in proposed appropriations in the submitted budget
were for salaried positions that were either vacant for a long period of time
or in actuality did not exist. These dollars could be used to be transferred to
other lines as desired. In this revised budget the freed funds were allocated
where past years suggested that the entity was being underfunded. One major
area was to build up the “insurance reserves” which Kochel pointed out are
dangerously low for the City’s self insurance program.
Prior to the
Special Meeting the Council heard a presentation about passing an Ordinance
making public areas “smoke free” .Such areas would be parks , athletic fields and playgrounds. There is no Ordinances
known that make sidewalks smoke free areas. The Ordinance would have penalties
etc. listed but questionable is the ability and willingness to enforce such an Ordinance.
The Corporation Counsel will have such a document ready for Monday’s meeting.
Also, and
this was discussed by Dan in Plainfield Today on Thursday, the Council denied a request by Rodney
Maree of Chez Maree to waive the $2500 fee for the 2nd and third day
of the “festival” he will be sponsoring in September. This was despite the fact that last month
they had waived that fee for Garcia’s July 4th festival.
Edison Garcia is one of Jerry Green's top in-town campaign contributors. Mr. Maree has every right to feel the slight of favoritism. Councilman Reid is Mr. Green's campaign treasurer, so is quite familiar with the who gets what for what. All the back-scratching leaves us scratching our heads.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest issue as I see it is that there is no understanding of what a simple budget is supposed to do.
ReplyDeleteTracy Brown did not attend any of the budget meetings as far as I know
Vera Greaves, when she attended, did not appear to have a grasp of what was being discussed
Bill Reid attended the meetings but seemed (based on his comments at the council meeting) did not understand the budget
Kochel gave a clear synapsis of why budget lines were being increased or decreased. Many on the council were either not listening to him, or did not understand.
The most important job the council has it to review the budget and make sure taxpayers money is being spent wisely. It saddens me that some council members do not take this responsibility seriously.