When Will The Council Vote On The Budget?

Chapter 9 Section of the City Charter directs the Mayor to provide a monthly financial report “not later than the fourth Friday of each month” and that date was last Friday. As of 4:00 PM today no report was in sight. Surprised???

Question for loyal OIB readers: There is a City personnel chart directly following the Mayor’s transmittal letter for the budget. It says the City (including Education and Nutrition 2208) has 3,523 TOTAL GENERAL FUND WORKFORCE. Several pages later a report about the self-insured health and dental plan indicates “Approximately 4,380 active employees and 4012 retirees receive their health coverage through this plan.”
That seems to indicate there are 857 “active employees” who qualify for the City paying 75% or more for their healthcare, but there is no listing of where they work, what they do, which budget they are paid from, and several other questions. Can someone please explain this to me? Has OPM provided a supplemental report to the City Council on this question? Do these ‘active employees’ qualify for retirement benefits also? Where do those costs show up???
The City Council does not review the Mayor’s budget. Is that because it is perfection itself? Because the Mayor does not deign to explain his budget reasoning to the Council? From my point of view several questions can be raised:
** There is one ghost position shown that with benefits approaches $55,000 expense.
** One Mayoral Aide position expense is moving from $78,306 to $93,330 which is about a 20% increase while the other aide position increased 2%. Curious at least? Another example of “sharing the suffering?”
** And actual 2011 expenses per Purchase Orders were only 8% higher than reported as 2011 Actual. Of course, Food, Restaurant, Catering & showed $7,666 spent, smaller than a number of departments, but again, who is sharing the suffering when somebody is buying meals, or coffee and so regularly???
(We noted in the Purchase Order listing for 2011 actual the BOE Grants, expenses for this same General Code 394 was over $190,000 for some 300 purchase orders! Think about that. In a 180-200 day school year every day of work represented about 1.5 purchase orders averaging $600 per purchase order or $900 per day. It seems to me the entire line item could be struck from all City budgets as a health item. Don’t need Nutri System. Don’t need Weight Watchers. And since many of these people who are lunching or munching at taxpayer expense are also getting healthcare benefits where the self-insured expenses are rising, maybe they should be buying carrots and celery sticks.
By the way, when the City Council B & A met on Saturday at UB for a 10:00 AM meeting that went on beyond my departure at 1:30 PM, but both a hot breakfast was initially available and then luncheon wraps, chips, and beverages were served shortly after Noon. And the bill from UB to the City for those meals is??? And located in whose budget???
(I don’t begrudge CC eating while working. I do that often. However, with what is going on in the City, every expense needs to be considered and I have not heard this issue addressed once. I personally miss very few meals, but I pay for my own food, something the CC may have done in the past. Why has the practice been dropped? Or should they use their stipend accounts for such meals? How about OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE and TRANSPARENT??? One Council member offered me some food Saturday afternoon for the first time, a sign of hospitality. As a rule the Council has had no problem consuming food paid for by taxpayer funds while sitting in front of some of those same taxpayers who have no food.) Let’s see what they plan to do with this budget. Will all of Tom Sherwood’s reports surplus to the budget itself be included as exhibits and make their way to the City Clerk? Time will tell.