Letter – Budget cuts on basis of necessity – October 24, 2007

For the last eight weeks Nicole Haley of the Daily News Tribune has been running a series on the Councillor at Large race. Her question of the week has allowed all the candidates to express their views on various subjects. Some of them require more detail than is allowed in her column. Over the last few years I have expressed my opinions on many of these issues in Letters to the Editor. This week’s question is one that needs more explanation.

When answering a hypothetical question, it is pretty hard to give the wrong answer because it is not dealing with reality. It is my belief that if budget cuts have to be made there is nothing that is automatically off the table. Every department head must be able to justify their budget every year. The idea of saving money by cutting unnecessary expenses here and there, as expressed by a couple of councilors makes no sense to me. If it is unnecessary, it shouldn’t have been in the budget in the first place.

As a firefighter for the last thirty years, no one in this race understands the issue of public safety more than I do. As a father of two grown children, I fully appreciate the need for a high quality, well rounded education. As a homeowner, I appreciate the everyday services the city provides like trash pick-up, curbside recycling and snowplowing. As a member of the Fire Prevention Unit, I know the importance of building inspectors, code enforcement officers, etc. I also know that if I go to city hall with a problem, I expect someone to be there who can help me. As a person approaching retirement, I understand the need to control spending and keep taxes as low as possible. However, as I have said before, all services are essential to the person receiving them.

I am a firm believer that when ever possible work should be done in-house. However, it would be cost prohibitive to have an expert on every issue on staff in-house. Because of the cost of having an expert on staff there has been a large increase in the number of consultants. This is not only true in the public sector but in the private sector as well.

Every year when the City Council goes over the budget, it is their responsibility to evaluate the performance of every city department. Poor performance must never be accepted. If the job is not being done, the best time to correct it is during the budget debate. When it comes to cutting budgets, there are no sacred cows. The first things cut are the ones that the department heads can not justify. This should be the case even if there is no fiscal crisis.