Tonight the Park Ridge City Council is supposed to adopt a budget for FY 2012-13, which begins on May 1.
For those of you who just started paying attention to the City’s budgets, you might find the process a bit arcane and confusing. But don’t feel bad about that. Many/most of our elected officials over the past decade (or two?) appear not to have understood it, either, which is why the City’s finances are in an iron lung and looking to get worse as the $39.8 million Uptown TIF debt begins to suck even more money out of the General Fund, beginning in 2013-14.
Take Ald. Rich DiPietro (2nd), for example. He has been on the City Council since 1995 and has served as the Council’s Finance & Budget (“F&B”) chair as recently as last year. He’s participated in, by our count, the creation and passage of 17 City budgets…and the property tax levies that help fund all those budgeted and unbudgeted expenditures.
And yet, when it comes to budgeting and levying taxes in an economically-sustainable manner, DiPietro talks, acts and votes like someone who is…well…clueless.
Which could explain why DiPietro consistently has voted for higher and higher expenditures without commensurate increases in revenues, causing an erosion in the General Fund balance to its current critical level. Clueless would also explain why, as recently as last Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, DiPietro was arguing for including in tonight’s vote on the FY 2012-13 budget a vote on the property tax levy…for FY 2013-14.
Despite explanations from Finance & Budget Chair Ald. Dan Knight (5th) and City Finance Director Allison Stutts, we’re not sure DiPietro is any clearer on the concept that budgets and tax levies are passed separately. Or that he already voted on the property tax levy for the 2012-13 budget being approved tonight…back in December.
But ignorance about this process apparently can’t stop DiPietro from trying to add a couple of budget amendments to jack up spending: a $49,500 handout for one for his personal favorite private corporation “community groups,” Center of Concern; and $19,445 for raises for salaried City employees, based on some as-yet undetermined standard for measuring whether particular employees are “achieving or surpassing expectations.”
And where does DiPietro propose that extra money come from? He doesn’t. He’s just expecting City Mgr. Jim Hock to come up with the $68,945 total, presumably in other cuts.
Talk about the blind leading the blind.
Whether DiPietro can get the three additional votes he needs to pass these amendments remains to be seen. We figure he can count on dependable spendthrift Ald. Tom “The Businessman” Bernick (6th), but whether he can pull two more votes may depend on how many Center of Concern supporters once again show up with their hands out to cajole and/or guilt the cash out of the Council.
Meanwhile, the Council already is talking about increasing the City’s share of property taxes for FY 2013-14 by as much as an 11% – to be levied this coming December, Ald. DiPietro – and about a deceptively smaller tax increase combined with the institution of a separate charge for garbage collection. Whatever form that increase takes, however, won’t even do anything to address the upcoming increase in Uptown TIF debt service costs.
Unfortunately for Park Ridge taxpayers, DiPietro and Bernick seem to be either in denial or just unconcerned. The question tonight will be: how many other aldermen share those same problems?
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5 comments so far
An 11% tax increase is absurd. They need to cut services or give furlough days to city employees. These elected officials and the City Manager should either fix the problem by cutting expenditures or resign. Whether they inherited this problem or caused the problem, they should vote for what is good for all of the citizens of Park Ridge, not just the special interest groups!!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Well, considering that DiPietro and Bernick can’t even bring themselves to cut the City’s $49,000 handout to Center of Concern, what you are suggesting appears easier said than done – especially when you offer no suggestions about what additional expenses should be cut or how many additional furlough days should be handed out.
Ths source of these financial problems, however, is extremely important in determining accountability: thanks to the boneheaded “investment” of prior mayors and councils in the Uptown TIF that saddled the City with approx. $40 million of bonded debt, the current mayor and council are stuck with a lot of locked-in expenses not of their making that don’t add one penny to the furnishing of essential City services. And while we agree that an 11% increase would, under most circumstances, sound absurd, from what we see and hear of City finances, an 11% increase may not be enough to put the City on the road to economic recovery.
But we expect that will be much more thoroughly discussed between now and the new levy in December.
An 11% increase in property taxes is not the answer.
How about this for a suggestion: every non union person has to take 80 hours in furlough days in the upcoming year. The City Manager has to take a 20% pay cut. All city management has to take a 10% pay cut.
Stop picking up lawn cuttings weekly and make it twice per month.
All contracts being negotiated starts with the premise of benefit reduction and salary frozen.
Increase the false police alarms from $50 per incident to $100 per incident.
It’s a start…
EDITOR’S NOTE: Whether an 11% – or higher – tax increase is “the answer,” or even an answer, depends on how much more this Council is willing to cut. Which itself depends to some degree on how many more services the taxpayers are willing to do without.
And, yes, it’s “a start…”, although some of your ideas might also be non-starters for a majority of the Council: e.g., 80 furlough hours and a 10% pay cut for non-union staff when Ald. DiPietro tonight will be seeking an increase in wages for non-union City employees; starting union contract negotiations “with the premise of benefit reduction and salary frozen” might not be considered bargaining in good faith and, therefore, might be an unfair labor practice; etc.
But we encourage you to write your aldermen. You can’t rely on this blog to get the message to them, especially since several of them insist that they never read this blog.
The community groups funding is a luxury we can’t afford, but I’d also like to see a critical look at much bigger line items in the budget.
This kind of critical look certainly doesn’t happen in local newspapers. Craig Adams gives us a story (link below) that discusses the 11% increase only in terms of how we’re going to bend over and take it. http://www.journal-topics.com/news/park_ridge/article_06a85a94-7910-11e1-aee0-0019bb30f31a.html
Where’s the discussion of cuts as part of the formula? It’s axiomatic: the more taxes you raise, the more money government spends.
EDITOR’S NOTE: You get no argument from us, FWT: if the local newspapers did their jobs, we never would have started this blog.
Whether the City can cut its way out of its current and future messes (i.e., the upcoming increase in Uptown TIF payments) remains to be seen. But any tax increase should require a freeze on expenditures and an ironclad commitment by the City as to the specific uses for every dime of the additional funds BEFORE the increase is approved. Perhaps an advisory referendum might also be in order to get the best possible feedback from the taxpayers as to their support of whatever plan the City comes up with.
……but at least we will still be getting our beloved Spokesman. So we got that going for us…which is nice!!!!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Spokesman apparently is “beloved” by many. If we had our way, however, it would be available online; but anybody who wanted a printed copy could get one by subscription…for an additional cost (or “user fee,” if you prefer), of course.
the newspapers don’t do their jobs because they consider these “entry level” jobs and pay them that way. Dwight is how old? Jennifer has been around how long? I heard this from one of publisher’s mouths about five years ago — before the recession and before most people under 65 started getting their news from the Web.
Altho the ownership has probably changed by now, the owners mentality hasn’t. If you want the New York Times-quality writing and investigative journalism, you have to — gasp! — pay a teensie bit for it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The local rags already cost “a teensie bit.”
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