Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 16
MOTION TO AMEND BY ALDERMEN JETTE TO ELMINATE $241,338.00 FROM THE POLICE
DEPARTMENT LINE 90120
ON THE QUESTION
President Wilshire
Alderman Jette?
Alderman Jette
So we have heard the Mayor explain his position how he started from being a given difficult task based
upon the consequences of what the State Pension Fund, the amount that they are asking us to pay plus
the legislature’s not funding schools as much, not funding or giving us our full share of the Rooms & Meals
tax. There were several things that the State Budget is doing that is reducing the support that the City is
getting from the State which has put us in a difficult situation. And he explained how he asked the various
departments to either maintain a zero budget or reduce it and how he tried to get the Police Department to
go with, | think it was a 1.7% cost of living increase. And the Police came back and said that they want —
that they don’t want to do that. So the effect of the Mayor holding them to the 1.7% cost of living increase
if | understood it correctly was that it would reduce their proposed budget by about $241,338.00.
Now their entire budget is according to page 144, their entire budget is $35,320,858.00. That is a 6.7%
increase over last year’s budget and the Mayor asking them to reduce that by $241,338.00 seemed fairly
reasonable to me. | think that in a $35 million dollar budget they would be able to find that amount and |
think during the budget hearing, the Police Chief told us that he could meet the Mayor’s request that
whatever amount of money we provided to the Police Department he would live with that but he pointed to
us that that there would be a reduction in services in some way. And he pointed out that he would have to
eliminate 4 police officers. | questioned him about that because | think when | divide the $240 or whatever
amount that the Mayor is asking him to reduce the budget by 4 | end up with around $60,000.00. | know
Police Officers make more than that and when you add in their benefits it is a lot more than that. And |
think, you know, | have a lot of respect for the Police Department and the Chief and the Deputies and all of
the Police Officers, | think he does a great job, it is an extremely well run Department.
But when we are asking other Departments to reduce their budgets or limit their budgets to under 2% and
the Police are asking us for 6.7% | think it’s not fair. | think that and | am not going to pretend to be able to
look at their budget and come up with items that | would say they can reduce. The Chief and there’s a
Commission that can do that, they have an excellent budget person. So! am not going to tell them how to
reduce their budget by $241,000.00 but | certainly believe that they can. We are talking about $35 million,
$241,000.00 out of $35 million, it seems to me that that’s a reasonable request. The Mayor is trying to
deal with a difficult situation and he’s asked the Departments to cooperate in that regard and | think it is
reasonable. You know, we’ve just been awarded or this Wallet Hub has said that we are the 4'" Best Run
City in the Nation and that’s certainly not because of anything I’ve done. | think it is largely due to the
Mayor and his management of the City Departments including the Police Department. And | support him
in his trying to lessen the impact on the taxpayers as much as possible. So that’s why | make that motion.
President Wilshire
Alderman Dowd?
Alderman Dowd
Yes | am the liaison of the Police Commissioners and yes they will operate with any amount of money we
give them. But you can’t expect the same amount of service. And when they put their budget together
they didn’t add anything, they just kept the same services and the same manning and everything that they
