Council Committee To Wrap Up Budget Deliberations In Advance Of Full City Council Vote

It’s crunch time for the City Council’s Budget & Appropriations Committee to amend Mayor Joe Ganim’s proposed spending plan that calls for no tax increase for the fiscal year starting July 1.

The work they do over the next few days will be a leap of faith based on what’s anticipated from the state budget still a work in progress. The seven-member committee is co-chaired by Ernie Newton and Scott Burns.

Motor vehicle owners will receive a cut as a result of how the state now calculates assessments on cars.

The budget committee could vote on the fiscal plan this weekend in advance of a full council vote on Monday.

The looming question: how much extra will the budget committee carve out of the fiscal plan to provide more dough to the cash-strapped school system that’s undergoing dramatic cuts to close a major budget gap. Ganim’s budget proposal adds $3 million. The budget committee met with school district leaders Thursday evening in advance of finalizing the plan.

Could the police department be trimmed to aid education spending? Education advocates and school board officials have pushed council members to examine that area.

The mayor’s budget funds roughly 360 police officers with the current staffing level at 310. A recent independent study, however, commissioned by the City Council, revealed 329 officers is sufficient for the city’s 148,000 population.

In addition Chief Roderick maintains that dozens of officers are eligible for retirement and he wants to keep pace with those possible losses.

Some budget committee members are not inclined to allocate more than the $3 million proposed by the mayor for schools, arguing the fiscal chaos the district is facing was caused by the nine-member school board and they’re not amenable to bail them out.