Finance Committee - 7/5/2018 Page 13
Alderman Laws
That doesn’t really do much.
Alderwoman Kelly
Thank you, | would ask the members of the board that were here, do we remember what the circumstances
were around bringing it up to $15,000.00 and then bringing it back, that’s my question.
Alderman Caron
| wasn’t on the board.
Mayor Donchess
| wasn’t here at the time. | mean | can guess, it was just someone wanted more oversight. Were you on the
board?
Alderman Caron
No | wasn’t. | think | was probably still working when they changed it. And you’re right, some of it was I’m
sorry to say, it is micro-managing. And departments have to do their day to day job. If you are looking at a
$10,000.00 repair cost and you have to wait two weeks for approval from finance it is holding up their work
schedule. I’m sure you, Alderman O’Brien, you’ve had that same situation in the Fire Department.
Alderman O’Brien
Fire exactly. | mean this, if | may Mr. Mayor? | think this would be more efficiency in government. | think we
exist as a board, we still provide the oversight, it’s not like we are going anywhere. We will still be able to
monitor to see exactly what each division is particularly doing. This just raises it so less paperwork and will
actually probably benefit, the employees won’t be coming, filling out all this stock and getting prepared for our
meetings. So it will probably increase it on their end, their efficiency, it could even be a cost-saving issue to
some degree where you are not coming up and filing before the board.
| would recommend at least going back to $15,000.00 is an easy start. We seem to be comfortable, we were
there before and if it works good we can go even higher, go to the $25,000.00. But today, | just ran some
numbers on the inflation calendar and things are more money today. It makes sense to raise it.
Mayor Donchess
One of the arguments they make as just stated by Alderman O’Brien which is that actually putting all these
memos together and explaining every purchase and then doing it twice, at least for Public Works, because
they do this at the Public Works Board and at the Finance Committee. This is a lot of person hours put into
getting a $10,000.00 item approved. It probably is multiple person hours to get something that is 1/100 of 1%
of the budget approved. So that is kind of part of their argument. | didn’t do the math on the 100" of 1%, a
10" of a per cent.
Alderman Laws
So | will reiterate where | am at. | completely agree with Alderman O’Brien and Alderwoman Caron. | think that
there are probably far more unintended consequences that are going to benefit the City as a result of this than
the alternative. The only concern | have is just the optics of it and unfortunately not as many people watch
these meetings as would probably benefit the City. So all it takes is just one person to be like “Well the Board
of Aldermen raising your property taxes and now they are trying to make it so they can spend more money
without you knowing about it”. And it just is a matter of how we package this. We have to be completely open.
