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Councillors feeling all rushtrated by budget hustle

Mayor Christian Provenzano says city councillors don't get enough time to properly evaluate the municipal budget and he wants a new budget process in 2016.

Mayor Christian Provenzano says city councillors don't get enough time to properly evaluate the municipal budget and he wants a new budget process in 2016. 

"I think that we need to redevelop the budgeting process so council will have a more active role in it," Mayor Provenzano told SooToday after a meeting this afternoon of the city's finance committee.

"I was elected in December," Provenzano said. "Staff started working on this year's budget last year. It gets presented to City Council in January. And the final budget comes back sometime in April."

After all that time, councillors are expected to vote immediately on a massive document they received just a few days earlier.

"I think that councillors should have some additional time with substantive information so they can make the right decisions on where they want the resources to be allocated," the mayor said.

"From my perspective, we're probably going to be looking at a new process going into the 2016 budget," the mayor said.

Provenzano said that he, Ward 3 Councillor Matthew Shoemaker and Ward 6 Councillor Ross Romano are all members of the finance committee and all rookie members of City Council.

"We don't want to make last-minute decisions that are uneducated. We want to make sure that we make decisions based on information and based on fact. To have information and facts, you need some time," the mayor said.

"So if you get all the information on [April] 20th and you have to make a decision on the 20th, you're not left with much time to make sure you're making the right decision."

"It's very frustrating," says Ward 5 Councillor Frank Fata, a two-term veteran who also sits on the finance committee.

"We're being asked to represent the people of the city. We're being asked to tighten our belts like we would our own family budget. It's something that we have to do sincerely and it's very difficult because you're being pulled from various directions."

Fata said he's not alone on council in feeling awkward when forced into a hasty decision on a budget he's just seen for the first time.

As for the 2015 municipal budget, an early draft presented on January 26 proposed a 4.6 percent tax increase.

And the finance committee secured a promise today from Bill Freiburger, the city's treasurer and commissioner of finance, to try to provide early budget numbers two weeks prior to the budget meeting on April 20.

The city will hold the last of its budget input sessions from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 11 at the Korah Branch Library.

Budget comments and suggestions can also be emailed until Friday, March 13 to [email protected].

The finance committee decided today to ask City Council to broaden its mandate, allowing the committee to review and prioritize supplemental budget requests and provide recommendations to council.

It's also hoping to hold a meeting on March 25 to weigh the supplemental requests and feedback from the public input sessions.

Meanwhile, Councillor Fata served notice today that he wants to bring forward a resolution at Monday's City Council meeting, calling for outside agencies receiving grants from the city to pare their requests by 10 percent.

"If it's something less than that, if it ends up being something between five and ten percent, then that's fine," Fata said.

"It's not etched in stone. We have to try and be reasonable. We have to ask these agencies to try and tighten their belt as best they can."

 


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David Helwig

About the Author: David Helwig

David Helwig's journalism career spans seven decades beginning in the 1960s. His work has been recognized with national and international awards.
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