City Commission Concerned About “Pressure on the Budget”
Decatur Metro | June 21, 2010 | 11:52 pmBefore the final vote on the 2010-2011 budget at tonight’s Decatur City Commmission meeting, Mayor Bill Floyd began a conversation with his fellow commissioners about the projected long-term financial obligations of the city and what he continually referred to as “pressure on the budget.”
Spurred by recent concerns about proposals to take on additional debt for unfinished capital improvement projects like renovation of the Recreation Center, Public Works facility, Fire Station No. 1 and the Beacon Hill complex, Floyd asked the City Manager and Asst. Manager Andrea Arnold to project out costs for some of the city’s larger financial obligations, specifically the retirement fund, health insurance and pension payments to retired employees.
While Mayor Floyd originally asked that the projections be discussed over the next year, Commissioners Boykin and Baskett later suggested that the projections be delivered much sooner so the commission could consider future obligations prior to making decisions about incurring additional debt for the aforementioned capital improvement projects by the end of the calendar year.
Commissioner Patti Garrett added an additional request to that: a breakdown from the City Manager of how the 2006 bond fund money was allocated and how it has been spent. City Manager Merriss agreed to fulfill both the Mayor’s request for debt projections and incorporate Commissioner Garrett’s request in a document that would be available to the entire community in the next “few weeks”.
The City Manager also used the opportunity to take a moment to directly address the 2006 bond fund project estimates, which have recently come under scrutiny as unfinished projects from that list will now require additional funding to be completed.
“We had not had capital funds for master planning and construction documents, like the school system….We were guesstimating to some extent and living within a range we were given for expenditures and when we got in and did the master planning and construction documents, the community actually wanted something different than what we estimated…We want to make sure what we’re putting together today lasts 50 years.”
In terms of the specific resolution which would allow the city to approve expenditures to begin investigating the use of Build America Bonds to pay for an estimated $13.5 million in future capital improvements for the Rec Center, Public Works building and Fire Station No.1, all commissioners voted in favor of supporting the measure with the massive caveat that they were “not voting on whether this would be a .2 mill increase for anybody”, in the words of Commissioner Garrett.
About as I expected. The Commissioners were not about to tell Peggy Merriss that she could not investigate the options, but with the caveat that they may not support the ultimate proposal.
I think it will be a tough sell for Peggy and the Commission to call for a tax increase given the continuing economic climate and uncertainty, but we’ll see. She has a lot of power around City Hall and usually gets what she wants and only rarely to the Commissioners push back.
I would like to see a total on all the Change Orders for the bond projects – seems like the Commission votes to approve a Change Order every meeting increasing the costs of projects.
Why does she have so much power?
I happen to think she uses the power well. Having said that, my oversimplified, probably somewhat naive impression is that elected local officials have real day jobs as well as their elected duties so they are part-time and therefore appoint executive manager types who really run the show, do the heavy lifting, and then bring fairly well-developed policies, decisions, plans etc. to the elected body for high level discussion and approval. In the case of City Hall, that executive manager is the City Manager who answers to the City Commission; in the case of the school system, that manager is the Superintendent who answers to the School Board. Each has staff under them who can wield a fair amount of power themselves, for good or for bad, as demonstrated recently in the DeKalb County School System. I have a generally positive feeling coming out of my dealings with City of Decatur managers.
I’m glad the mayor and commission are asking some questions about the budget. The city has some smart, capable employees and government, but are we sure we’re making decisions based on current conditions? Like the awful state of the economy?
Who’s confident the stock market is going back to 2007 highs any time soon? In Peggy Merriss’ letter that she sent with the budget, she says the city had to contribute 9% to the employees’ retirement fund, instead of the previous 8 %. That looks small, but it’s a 12.5% increase. If the stock market stays bad, or gets worse, won’t we taxpayers have to make up the difference in the pension fund?
Why does the budget letter say we’re not giving raises to city employees, but we are giving them an extra week of salary? Isn’t that a raise, even if it’s only 1.93%? Are folks who work for other governments or private industry getting raises like that?
And didn’t we use $400K of our 6 mil reserve fund last year, and $600K this year? Or was it the reverse? I guess I’m just worried that the staff is being way too optimistic about the economic situation for the next 5 or so years, maybe longer.
Adding two-tenths of a mill to your tax bill, averaging about $40, sounds innocent enough, but we need to consider that with all the other increases that are looming or have occurred. What about the two real property exemptions of $8K that we lost this year? Again, it’s all small stuff–for now. I really hope the commission will look hard at all this.
Lots of good questions Nan.
Yes, a $40 tax increase isn’t much, but you can only keep going back to the well so many times. If things don’t turn around economically pretty soon, we will eat up that reserve fund and you might actually have to go back to the taxpayers to fund essential services. And then people are not going to be so willing to fork it out, since you just asked them for money a few years ago for some shiny toys.