Budget 2012 - Is the City Ready?

If departed Chief Finance Officer Ron Zilinski left a legacy, it may have been shepherding the city through the process of converting back to a calendar year budget. But now that the city has achieved the change through a six-month "transition year," a new, part-time CFO will be a key figure in the budget process that began Jan. 1.

There is also a new city administrator on the job and a new director of Public Works & Urban Development.

The transition budget passed without scrutiny by a citizen budget committee and so far no mention has been made of a committee for the 2012 budget year. Controversies over the Recreation and Purchasing Division were set aside for the six-month transition and the $100-per-hour videographer who taped council meetings was allowed to stay on, though his contract ended the day before the transition period started.

Newcomers or part-timers have no knowledge of issues that were put in abeyance for the transition budget.

Since the end of 2007, when veteran CFO Peter Sepelya retired, the city spent three years without a CFO, only hiring Zilinski under the threat of daily state fines on the mayor and council members. When the administration tried to make do with a part-time CFO in 2008, the budget document sent to the state included a $1.7 million typo despite the fact that the CFO and about a dozen other officials signed off on it.

The council has changed its meeting schedule since 2008 to just one agenda-fixing session and one regular meeting per month. Separate budget deliberations should start soon. Will the part-time CFO get up to speed on Plainfield's fiscal issues quickly? Will there be a Citizens' Budget Advisory Committee as before? The city's special charter calls for the mayor, with the assistance of the city administrator, to prepare the budget document and carry out other fiscal tasks, although Sepelya was the linchpin of budget preparation in the past. If interested, you can look up the whole process online under Article V of the City Charter on the city web site.

All the new people that will be involved in the 2012 budget process come with experience and knowledge of municipal government; the trick will be to gain insight into Plainfield's unique fiscal issues. Good luck to all in 2012.

--Bernice