Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 4/11/2017 - P24
Board of Aldermen — 4/11/17 Page 24
Alderman Lopez
| would like to echo the comments made by Alderman O’Brien. It is difficult for me to be assured, as | have
constantly been every time this comes up, that if it is really important the ten votes will be there. The people
who are most likely not going to vote are constantly referring to this issue as an end-run, a work around.
The issue seems like it was clearly stated as this shouldn’t be a combined fund. It should be in Column A or in
Column B. That’s not a work to the Spending Cap. That’s a practical reality that we set this up differently than
it should have been set up.
We have apparently for years been operating under a spending cap where we had that ability to meet the
expenses while this fund was in two different columns. It shouldn't be in two different columns. | would argue
that a lot of the decisions made for stay within the spending cap while it was in two different columns
disproportionately affect people on fixed incomes. They are the ones who rely more on public transportation.
They are the ones who don’t have as much extra money to send their kids to school. They are the ones who
need to services that the city offers through city welfare. They rely as much, if not more, on the police and fire
for emergency intervention and things like that. We've been making decisions to stay under the spending cap
based on what we knew and when we cut back, it does affect people who are on fixed incomes more than
people who have other alternatives than to just use city services.
| don’t think this is an end run or a work around or anything of the kind. | think this is recognizing that this was
mis-categorized. We do need to address this. | am in no way advocating my responsibility to move forward
with a budget review process and make sure that if this is in the right column, Column B, as | believe it should
be, that we don’t go on a spending spree and start buying ridiculous things for the city or spending money that
would raise the taxes unnecessarily.
If there are arguments that some of this supports services in the city that need to expanded or should not be
cut, which | think really is the argument, | haven’t heard anything to the effect to let’s make anything bigger, it’s
more like let’s just not whittle away at whatever is left then | think we need to take into account the most
vulnerable in our city and remember that they are the ones who need these services. We may not ourselves
benefit from them directly. The whole point of a community and a city is a cooperative effort. | don’t think we
can ethically just adhere to here’s a formula and this is the process. We are not going to accept any decisions
other than ones that lead to a certain way.
| think what we are looking at right now will preempt the decision that’s being anticipated by many. | don’t think
we need to get to that spending cap override crisis that nobody really wants to do. | think it is a pretty clear cut
case of this should be in Column B and when the budget comes, we should look at the budget and review what
is being presented regardless of het spending cap. As Alderman Siegel pointed out, if we had a great year and
we had more money than we currently forecast as needing in our budget, we wouldn’t necessarily spend it all
either. | don’t see how there’s a difference with this.
Alderman Dowd
Whichever way this goes, the Mayor is going to be presenting us with his budget at the end of this month. I’ve
already started laying out the budget meetings starting in May and June. | heard people say that there’s room
in the budget for cuts. Because | know everyone will review the budget book in detail if you feel that there is
something that you think might not need to be funded, | would ask that you one of three things: talk to the
budget director for that particular budget and ask them the question and get the facts, or come to the budget
meeting where we address that particular budget and ask the question there, or you can send me the question.
| will send it to the budget director. | will get the answer and give it to everyone on the board so everybody has
the same answers. | would ask if you talk to the budget directors and you get data, please share it with me so |
can share it with the entire board or share it with Sue so she can send it out.
Last year, we went through the entire budget process and there was one motion, and it failed and the budget
passed. Obviously there wasn’t a lot of room in last year’s budget. | would ask that if you think there are
places that are under the control of the budget process, because union contracts are not, please do your
