Board of Aldermen — 4/11/17 Page 20
A budget override is a consequence, not a process. | would urge any of my colleagues that wish to put $9
million in additional money we have to find under the Cap, that’s fine; the process is to tell us all how that
happens materially because there’s a lot of very, very talented people on this board and in various
departments that have gone through it meticulously. And, by the way, | credit the Mayor with asking his
department heads to approach the budget well in advance with the idea that they are flat lining. That’s just flat
lining and to see what’s happens. Now we’re not flat lining. We're flat lining minus nine.
If my colleagues can find out how to deal with that, that’s great because that’s a process. Overriding the Cap
is a consequence. | don’t think we need to get to the consequence. We can select Option B and then deal
with how we manage our spending appropriately like we always do, like if we had a budget where we had an
inflation rate of 12 percent and all of a sudden we had a tremendous amount of space in the Cap. That doesn’t
mean we Say, oh great! We have 12 percent additional space in the Cap; let’s go spend away. And there are
years where, in fact, inflation was quite high. We are now in an extended very, very low inflationary period. So
we have issues to deal with that, but we also have expenses that we are not responsible for.
We have the pension obligation we did not create. We have special education funding we did not create. We
have raises and rates we did not create. It isn’t like we have been irresponsible. | understand we are going to
make tough choices, but guess what? We get to make those tough choices. That’s what budget season is
about. And that’s where the process really happens in budget season. Please, God, let’s go with Column B.
Thank you.
Alderman Schoneman
The Charter, | think, lays out the process. That’s where it is at. It’s not just a consequence. | think we’re in a
consequence because of a desire to continue to spend money that is going to exceed the Cap. | fully
understand there are some things we are going to have to do. | think | heard from my colleague, Alderman
Siegel, say that there are some things that, of course, some of us may not want to include. By the way, | read
in the paper that as far as the school budget goes, which is the largest department in this city, that the
superintendent was putting together a budget that was 1.3 percent over the previous year. Then the
superintendent found out that it was going to be 1.4, so she put together a budget for 1.4. | understand Mayor
Donchess went to the Board of Education and said, I'll get you 1.9. Now is that the kinds of controls over
spending that we’re going to have with that gap in there?
| understand the Mayor has priorities and desires to accomplish certain things. | don’t find fault in that. The
one thing | don’t like is | think we’re doing damage to the city by going around this process. That! think is
nuclear too. If there’s a nuclear option here, | think that seems to be the one that my opponents are proposing.
Thank you.
Alderman Lopez
With regards to education spending, | recall that we did voluntarily cut money from the education budget last
year and that education is directly linked to property tax values, the success of a city, all the economic
development issues that we have had. | know in my ward, particularly, we have a strong need for an effective
education program. Schools that are funded appropriately, schools that are supplied adequately. | don’t really
see that as discretionary, willful spending. | think that is our priority for us as acity. We need to make sure
that our education system is solid.
| think that is just forward thinking and responsible management the same way having a paving program that
we plan out instead of choosing other priorities regularly is forward thinking and responsible. | think we need to
be careful not to just prioritize using a formula to make decisions for us out of convenience when the truth is
we're stacking that formula right now if we decided to just pump $9 million more into the deficit. We've had
opportunities over the past year to take different strategies that would have avoided issues with the spending
cap. We didn’t take those. We waited until now. This option is on the table and unfortunately it also includes
even more of a deficit.
