Board of Aldermen 09-22-2020 Page 35
| think this Ordinance is just regulating us. | don’t know. | haven’t done the research. | assume it’s not
based ona State Law. But if we have an Ordinance, we are asking our citizens, we are passing
Ordinances and we are asking our citizens to obey. We ought to obey our own Ordinances. | am
comforted by the fact that bond rating companies think so highly of us and | accept Attorney Bolton’s
recommendation or opinion that we don’t have to abide by these dates, but | think we should be. | think the
September 1*' date was just an accident and | don’t think anybody did that purposely and it soundslike it
was done on time but for some reason it didn’t get to us. | hope | don’t get into trouble for this but | thank
Alderman Teeboom for bringing this to our attention. And | would just encourage us in the future to make
sure we do
It's the way the Ordinance says we should do it and/or change the Ordinance. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Alderman Clemons.
Alderman Clemons
Thank you. Yeah the —| mean | know from just discussions in the Budget Committee that it had always
been intended to use $4.5 million against the taxrate. That's what we talked about in the Budget
Committee all through the spring and right up until we passed the budget. So | don’t think that came as a
surprise or it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anybody. As far as what the Unassigned Fund Balance
would be, | mean | think relative to every year we usually put a little bit aside here and there, butitis
always over 10% and | think that the way our CFO has done this calculation and has done this process
makes a lot of sense. And I'd be happy to sponsor Legislation to change the Ordinance so that we can get
it aligned with the way that we do business now because | have to tell you that we have, number one the
best CFO in the State and probably in New England and | would argue the country. And two, we ought to
be doing things the way that he suggests that we do it so that we can continue to have our AAA Bond
Ratings. So if there’s something in the Ordinance that needs to be changed, | am happy to sponsor that
and get it done so that we are aligned in how we should be doing this, which is the way that we’ve been
doing it the last 10 years. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Anyone else? Alderman Lopez?
Alderman Lopez
Yeah Alderman Clemons largely took the words right out of my mouth but! always have more. So | just
wanted to extend to CFO Griffin my support as well, because | mean CFO Griffin has been working here
despite or without change to all of the Boards that have come and gone and the Aldermen who have been
elected. And | think it’s largely because of his leadership and guidance that’s we’ve had such a great bond
rating. So if there is a different way to do it, then | think we need to recognize that. And while | agree with
Alderman Jette that we are a nation of laws, we have to apply some common sense to those laws and we
have to make sure that the laws, when we are elected to influence them or update them or change them,
that we are doing that in a way that makes sure that the needs of the people are actually being met.
And | think if CFO Griffin has a proven track record and can make his case, we need to look at updating the
Ordinance to that effect and we should use that knowledge rather than simply following the letter of the law.
And | don’t think the law is really meant to be like a magic spell that if you do it wrong, you summon a
lawyer. | think in this case it supposed to be guidance on howwe do business in the best interest of the
City. And it would be getting in our own to ignore a system or a plan or presentation just because it was
written down a specific way in the past. If we have to make an override here in this situation, then lam
willing to do that. | don’t have a heard a case for that to be done. But if we need to make changes moving
forward so that it is more clearly communicated with what the expectations are, | wouldn’t mind supporting
