Budget, Study Up For Approval Tonight

Random image: Young Praying Mantis

A proper budget story should contain the following:
- Total budget amount
- Municipal tax levy
- Proposed municipal tax rate
- Last year's tax rate
- Net valuation of city property
- Increase/decrease from prior year
- Any reasons for increase/decrease
- Tax on an average home
- Up/down from prior year

I am hoping to get all these figures before tonight's City Council meeting, at which the 2013 budget will most likely be approved. The meeting is 8 p.m. in Municipal Court.

This administration has not been the easiest to get answers from. Besides the massive turnover in cabinet members, there has been a non-responsiveness at times that has led those who would report to the public to conclude that it would take asking questions at public meetings or submitting Open Public Records Act requests to get answers. Some of the information listed above is in the big budget book or the Municipal Data Sheet that is prepared by the auditors, so it just needs to be looked up. The rest - well, we'll see.

One amendment approved only last Wednesday was an increase in the City Council's budget to cover a study of administrative operations. Why should the legislative branch have to get in the administration's business, so to speak? One reason is that the council has the fiduciary power over expenses. The other reason might be that in the years since 2006, the council has had the same problem as bloggers and reporters  in getting answers out of the administration. A study might uncover how operations can be made more efficient; the first trick, though, if it is to take place during the last six months of 2013, will be to get the current administration to cooperate in identifying problem areas.

When I was about to get married in 1958, my future spouse and I had to take classes required by the denomination in which we planned to take our vows. The marriage unfortunately didn't last past 19 years, but I still remember the lesson of those classes, that the marriage was an entity larger than each of us and had to be supported and upheld. The same goes for branches of government, as we can see both locally and in Washington. The union needs to be honored in a cooperative way or it stagnates and fails. I think the aim of the study is to find the current sticking points and smooth them out for the betterment of the city.

Time will tell.

--Bernice