Think Ahead on the Budget Process

While trying to find a mention of the SFY 2011 Citizens Budget Advisory Committee report, I came across
this post on Councilman Cory Storch's proposal for SFY 2012. As it turns out, there was no SFY 2012. Instead, we had a six-month "transition year" from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2011 to effectuate the change to a calendar year beginning Jan. 1, 2012 (thus called CY 2012).

For the transition year, there was no CBAC and most things were pretty much on hold, such as the $100 per hour contract for taping City Council meetings. Then just when a new city administrator was settling in, the chief finance officer quit and still has not been replaced by a permanent CFO. Cory's very solid ideas about the budget process sort of fell down a rabbit hole. The 2012 CBAC was officially appointed after nearly all the budget deliberations took place.

I got back from Seattle Tuesday night, a little too late to make the 7 p.m. extended budget session at City Hall Library. If that is the last one, I hope the CBAC will have a chance to give a report before the council formulates amendments.

It looks like amendment and final passage of the budget will happen at or past the half-year mark. The May 14 agenda included temporary funding for June. I hope Cory will take up the cudgels for a better budget process in 2013, but the continued turnover of key cabinet members and the administration's lack of cooperation with the governing body are likely to militate against it. Since the 28-hour CFO is gone, the city is relying on one who has two full-time titles elsewhere and can give the city only five to eight hours a week. The city administrator only has about six months on the job and two of the three department heads are relatively new and still finding their way with budget matters.

To complicate matters, Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson will leave city government to become the executive director of the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority starting July 1. So there will be another important transition in the cabinet for the last 18 months of the mayor's term.

One of Cory's suggestions is for a five-year budget projection. It would make a lot of sense if the cabinet was not always churning. Now one can see why former CFO Peter Sepelya was so valuable before he retired in 2007. Through his many years of service, he had the long view of city fiscal needs as well as sound knowledge of the rules the state expects municipalities to follow. Would that we could be so lucky to get another CFO  like Peter Sepelya to keep things on an even keel in the Queen City!

--Bernice