No Budget Workshops Scheduled This Year?
Every August since 2005, I have spent a lot of my time at City Hall attending budget workshops. Typically, City Council schedules four or five of these workshops during August and September, and they analyze every minute detail of the City’s revenue and expenditures over the last fiscal year to come up with a projected budget for the coming fiscal year.
Generally, I have enjoyed these sessions. They’re educational; I always learn something. I like watching the interaction between the Council members. I like hearing the discussions and knowing why certain decisions were made and why Council chose to go one way and not another.
There are many, many things the Council members have to take into consideration, many issues they have to look at, that all contribute to the decisions they make that result in the final budget. Many things determine how the City’s money will be spent.
This year, however, there will be no special budget workshops. Apparently, Mayor Schoolcraft has decided that all the discussion and consideration necessary can be done at the regularly scheduled Council meetings in August and September.
According to the schedule, the proposed FY 2010 budget will be presented to City Council at the August 13 Council meeting. At this meeting Council will also vote to place a proposal to adopt a tax rate on a future Council agenda and set a date and time for a public hearing on the proposed tax rate.
At the August 28 Council meeting, there will be public hearings on the proposed FY 2010 budget and on the proposed tax rate.
At the September 10 Council meeting, there will be public hearings on the proposed FY 2010 budget, to include the approved EDC budget, and, again, on the proposed tax rate.
At the September 24 Council meeting, public hearings on these subjects will be held once again. Also at this meeting, Council will adopt the City’s FY 2010 budgets and set the tax rate.
In my opinion, this doesn’t give Council enough time to work on the budget. Workshops were more informal. Robert’s Rules were suspended. Interaction and discussion among the Council members were easier and more relaxed.
Once the proposed budget is provided to Council members (hopefully prior to the August 13 meeting) they can review it, but they can’t discuss it with each other because to do so would be in violation of the Open Meetings Act. All of their interaction will have to take place at the public Council meeting.
I’m disappointed, but I’m probably the only one. I’m sure Council and City staff are glad they won’t have to spend all the extra hours at City Hall that the workshops would have required. I just hope the budget process doesn’t suffer in the meantime.
And I have to ask myself – why is the Mayor changing this budget process that has been followed for so many years by so many different Helotes City Councils?
This Council and the Mayor have rushed to add a Utility District backdoor tax burden on the Helotes community. Now they are abdicating their responsibility to prepare a thoughtful and well developed budget for 2010. It seems that they are “too busy” to be bothered to openly discuss the upcoming budget in workshops and will present the Helotes community with a “fait accompli” budget prepared by some unknown procedure that will not be subject to public evaluation. The limited three-minute public comment Council speaking opportunities are an inadequate opportunity for public input.