Board of Aldermen Page 9
May 24, 2016
Now, because of the timing of how this legislation was debated, a budget had to be put forward before
this legislation had its final determination. Nonetheless, that hole exists in the Capital Equipment
Reserve Fund and | believe if this were here that hole would not be the same size but we would still have
to do something. | strongly urge my colleagues to adopt this recognizing that this is a solution to a real
problem and that problem is going to manifest itself on us not doing proper replacement of our capital
equipment.
Alderman Schoneman
| appreciate all the work that Alderman Siegel did in concert with CFO Griffin to work this out and | think
there are clearly serious issues and | don’t take them personally. VVhen we had the last full Board of
Aldermen meeting we talked about an amount that could be suitable that would be less than $2.2 million
and | said | would consider it and | have. The $350,000 sounded attractive for a couple of reasons but in
the end | have to maintain my opposition to it for a couple of reasons. One, it is a spending cap override
of fiscal ’16; | cannot count on that spending cap override. The fiscal 17 problem for pensions has been
solved. | totally recognize the Capital Equipment Reserve Fund that has been created but | don’t share
the same view that we cannot do anything about CERF in this budget. | think there could be 10 votes to
increase the Capital Equipment Reserve Fund as necessary if there were 8 votes to reduce a line
somewhere else. It is about prioritization. In an effort to keep all city soending within the spending cap
for fiscal °16, 17 and on | am going to continue to oppose this legislation and when fiscal ’18 and fiscal
19 rolls around we will address those issues when the time comes.
Alderman Siegel
| appreciate the views of my colleague. | would point out that we have a $2 million overhang in the
following two budget years as estimated by CFO Griffin. That could get worse but that is the current
estimate from the state. In looking at the current budget, you can’t just say well where can | find that
$350,000 and plug it in here and call it a day. You have to think where can | find this in the next two
years because it isn’t going away. It’s all well and good to just say we will do an across the board cut but
anyone who has actually done a real budget knows that is impossible. The second that you start
defining those areas where there are fixed costs that are non-negotiable, then you are back making
decisions and trade-offs. You just don’t get to make a blanket statement about cutting it across the
board; that’s a very naive way to do budgets. This is looking forward and seeing what the rolling effect is
is. It’s easy to focus on the Capital Equipment Reserve Fund because that problem is going to multiply
itself. We've already seen what happens when we neglect our maintenance. If | take that $500,000 and
put it towards the pension well guess what, that’s a spending cap override but are we going to sit in
dogmatic debate and say oh my God, | can’t override the cap or what is the threshold over which we say
alright, now it’s so bad that | am willing to do something, | am going to override this religious conviction
because my arm is hanging off and | guess | better apply a tourniquet; is it a $3 million pension
overhang, a $5 million, a $7 million overhang? At a certain point these kinds of arguments fall by the
wayside and they become silly. You have to view the world as it is and not how you wish it to be. What
we are proposing does not affect the dollars out of the taxpayer’s pocket and that is ultimately what we
are talking about. Are we taking more money from taxpayer’s to do this, if we were | would not have put
this legislation in place. That is the point; to cap the amount of money that flows out of the taxpayer’s
pockets. | would serious urge everyone to be very careful in consideration of that and consider that as a
key point in all of this.
Alderman Schoneman
It’s clear that moving money from inside of the budget to outside in an expendable trust fund does not
affect taxes. If the cash is already there you spend it from account A or B but it doesn’t affect the tax rate
but what is does do is that if we were to take that gap of $350,000 and apply it to the Capital Equipment
Reserve Fund in the fiscal °17 budget then that would increase the budget and it would ultimately result
