As a member of the public, who knows what its like to be an insider, I have to give this year’s budget process an F. Irony.Why is it ironic? Well, the when the mayor was an alder, she prided herself on being a process wonk. I’m not sure how many people are following along . . . it takes a lot of time and effort, but here’s a few of my concerns.
Brief Background
The mayor has prepared “two budgets” one if the the referendum passes and one if it doesn’t. The first budget, is the budget that is introduced and the second is called many things, but I believe in City speak, its an “Alternate”. The first budget presumes the referendum passes. The second budget is the fall back plan if it doesn’t. Ok, that sounds simple enough right?
Where is the second budget?
I went to the city budget page for the operating budget, expecting to find two budgets.
Scrolling down further didn’t help.
So I started poking around and reading various summaries. I did find mention of it in this document called the Operating Budget Overview and Policies on the 2025 operating budget page.
If you look on page 16-21, you will find what I thought was a summary of the second budget. I kept looking for a link to the second budget. Where is it?
I asked several people who I thought could point me in the right direction.
Turns out, the 2nd budget is just that, pages 16 – 21. 6 pages.
Also turns out, its in the large “budget book” or Full Executive Operating Budget on pages 18 – 23.
That’s it, that’s the second budget that took an extra week away from the public and the common council look into this unprecedented budget.
How would alders amend the second budget?
My next question was, how does the process work for these “two budgets”.
I’ll cut to the chase, no one knows. At least the people I asked who should know didn’t seem to know. I think I may have figured out how its going to work, but I’m just guessing.
My questions were as follows:
- When the finance committee proposes amendments, are they proposing amendments to the budget with the referendum passing, or can they/should they also be making amendments to pages 18 – 23?
- If the referendum fails,
- will there be an additional finance meeting so the finance committee members can make amendments to the 6 page 2nd budget? Or will there be another full 475 page budget for the alders to amend?
- will there be just one ominbus amendment that includes pages 18-23 by the mayor? If yes, do alders “separate” items they don’t want to vote for? Or do they make a series of amendments?
- Hows the timing going to work? The referendum is November 5th. Amendments for the council meeting the next week are due at noon on the 6th. That gives the alders literally hours to do amendments and about 4 hours of assistance from finance staff.
When does the public show up to speak to the “2nd Budget”?
I think we only get one shot at it, the first night of the full council meeting on November 12th. The reason I think that is because I don’t actually think the 2nd budget is before the council?
This is how I think it’s going to work – Maybe?
- Public and Alders information gathering time (16 days).
- October 8 – Mayor reveals the budget for the public and alders to get their first look at it.
- October 14 & 15 – The finance committee will hear from all the departments and ask questions.
2. Finance committee amendments. Public gets 3.5 days to read them and give input.
- October 23 (Wednesday) – Alder amendments are due
- October 25 (Friday) – The public finds out what the proposed amendments are
- October 28 (Monday) – The finance committee votes on their amendments
3. Budget proposed to council presumes the referendum passes and we all stick our heads in the sand for the next 6 days pretending everything is going to be ok?
4. Referendum passes or fails.
- November 5th or 6th – We find out the election results.
- Noon November 6th – Council members have to have their amendments in.
- Noon November 8th – Public gets to find out what the council members amendments are (We have 4 days to respond and give input)
5. Full council gets to vote on the budget – either the budget as presented by the mayor or the “alternate” budget which I presume they must have a full copy of somewhere? Public gets less than 6 days to read 475 pages and respond.
I think this sucks. Giving the alders more than a few hours to make amendments sucks, but if they give the alders more time, the public gets less time. I think they need to push back the council meeting if the referendum fails and go through the whole finance committee process a second time.
I am hoping the referendum passes, but that’s a different blog post with lots of nuance. But if it doesn’t, this is a shit show. And the lack of clarity about how this works it dumbfounding.
