City Council - Question on City Budget

Question on City Budget

Printed From: MiddletownUSA.com
Category: Middletown City Government
Forum Name: City Council
Forum Description: Discuss individual members and council as a legislative body.
URL: http://www.middletownusa.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1832
Printed Date: Nov 22 2024 at 6:40pm

Topic: Question on City Budget

Posted By: Pacman
Subject: Question on City Budget
Date Posted: Aug 29 2009 at 8:45am

According to the MJ today:

"However, these are preliminary, and no final recommendations have been made by City Manager Judy Gilleland, which will have to be approved by City Council’s finance subcommittee as well as the full City Council in December."

"At the last meeting of the Finance Subcommittee, Gilleland was instructed to make about $1.35 million in budget cuts."

The question is why does the budget have to be approved by the Finance Committee before it can go to the Council as a Whole? The Finance Committee is basically made up of 3 Council Members who basically get to vote on moving the budget forward or not before the whole council does. This seems a bit odd.

Suppose the Finance committee doesn't agree with the Budget, but the other 4 council members do and would have passed the budget or vice versa.

I would think the budget would go from the Admin to the Council for approval or denial and not wait until the last meeting in Dec. '09. Going from the Admin to the Finance Committee for Approval them to the City Council for Approval seems to give the Budget power to the Finance Committee and not the Council as a whole. Am I looking at this the wrong way?

Replies:

Posted By: 409
Date Posted: Aug 29 2009 at 9:27am

Pac...I agree. The Finance Commitee step seems totally unnecessary.

Gilleland also states:

“We’re trying to err on the side of time to give the employees notice of a possible job cut,” Gilleland said.

A check of several department heads as of Friday, Aug. 28, indicated these possible cuts: two open positions because of retirements in the Division of Fire; an unfilled police dispatcher’s position; an unfilled planning department position; a full-time secretarial position will be eliminated and a part-time position for a victims advocate coordinator will be created; a full-time position and five part-time seasonal positions as part of the elimination of the Division of Recreation; and four community revitalization positions.

This has been coming for some time and the process should have started some time ago.

Simply another case of the city being REACTIVE instead of PROACTIVE!!!

Posted By: Hermes
Date Posted: Aug 29 2009 at 10:09am

They need to start by eliminating Gilleland's paycheck,that would be a real good start.

These people act as if they are running a city the size of New York. It's all just justification for a quasi job. The bad part is they don't even do the job they have. Committees,sub-committees,boards,it's all trivial. Prestige for the superficial, insolent, prolific few oaf's who think they are somebody important and have nothing better to do.

-------------
No more democrats no more republicans,vote Constitution Party !!

Posted By: gemneye70
Date Posted: Aug 29 2009 at 6:13pm

Why is there a city manager and a mayor...do away with one of those positions. I agree that all of the committees and subcommittes are just there to justify someone's existence.