Last year's budget process got pretty far off the rails before consultant David Kochel stopped the train wreck. There was the $1.5 million shortfall, the mayor's call to slash the library budget and a ploy by City Administrator Eric Berry to discredit the governing body in the eyes of the state. Kochel engineered a final budget that solved all the fiscal issues, if not the political ones.
On Wednesday, I received a letter from the Friends of the Plainfield Public Library that detailed the group's many accomplishments, but then asked for help in 2013, saying "The mayor has proposed slashing the library budget by 50% from $1,800,000 to $925,000."
The latter figure is the state minimum and the same tactic came up this year, after the administration had already presented the governing body with a budget including full funding for the library. See Plaintalker's report here.
The city has adopted a calendar year, meaning the budget timetable will begin with adoption of a temporary budget in January and after three months the council must approve emergency appropriations each month until budget passage. The mayor and city administrator must prepare a budget document to submit to the governing body. Once it is introduced, the council and its budget advisory committee can modify it. As noted in the blog post linked above, the mayor's proposed 2012 cuts came as a surprise, but it appears FOPPL is marshaling support early for full funding in 2013.
Among city institutions, the library stands out for its innovations and adaptations to the community's changing needs. Decimating its budget hardly makes sense.
Another issue that came up last week was another $75,000 allocation for the law firm of City Solicitor David Minchello. The same amount was paid in May, retroactive to Jan.1, 2012 and also in August. Since Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson resigned to become executive director of the Plainfield Municipal Utilities Authority as of July 1, Minchello has occupied his seat in council meetings but the title of corporation counsel is vacant. The charter allows for the city solicitor to serve in place of the corporation counsel "temporarily."
The corporation counsel heads the city's in house legal department, which is listed in the budget with the usual categories of salaries and wages and other expenses. The question is, how does this $225,000 fit in the budget this year, and if the current situation continues through 2013, how will it be reflected in that budget?Maybe there is a simple answer.
--Bernice
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Two things are clear- As long as the Corporation Counsel keeps mute about violations of the ordinance limiting PMUA commissioner compensation, and disregards the fraudulant elimination of key components of the Inter Local Agreement between the city and PMUA, he will not be doing his job. Rather, he will be carrying water for the corrupt elements in city government that span all its branches, from the Administration, to the City Council, and of course PMUA itself. Not that this is anything new. The former Corporation Counsel, and current PMUA executive director, is expert at this, no doubt accounting for his hire. But when in doubt, or in dubious circumstances, always lawyer up. Many in this city are reliant on the Corporation Counsel to look the other way so questionable ethics, conflicts of interest, and rank profiteering are permitted to continue unabated. For them, $225,000 is a small price to pay. Government is there to make a buck off of, and results hardly matter once you've gotten your payday. On a national scale I'd attribute this to the Republican state of mind, but locally it's all Democrats. No one has worked harder to destroy the Obama legacy than our local Democratic party. No one has worked harder to legitimate corruption in this city than those occupying the Corporation Counsel post.
ReplyDeleteBernice,
ReplyDeleteI hate to be the devil's advocate, but doesn't the mayor propose and the council adopts? If any appointment, or expense, is approved by the council, then what does that make the council? Not guilt-free as far as I know.
Is this joke of a mayor never going to learn that the people of Plainfield will not stand for her slashing the library budget. I can't wait until she is out.
ReplyDeleteBob Bolmer
The question is, how does this $225,000 fit in the budget this year??
ReplyDeleteAnswer: Quite Excellently if you are a lawyer from out of town getting that big fat check!
First Maria, not all expenses are approved by the council - that is part of the problem. Second, the council as it stands in January will most likely vote for anything puts in front of them without thought or care about what is good for the citizens of Plainfield.
ReplyDeleteFor those council members who are more educated, it must be very frustrating. It makes the council a divided group of those who do what they are told and those who understand how to manage.