>>Valley Patriot>> |
The mayor has had four years to get this right. To give the Council three weeks to do something that he knows takes at least double that time is a slap in the face to every one of us on the Council and to the city’s taxpayers. The mayor’s irresponsibility has guaranteed we will start the fiscal year on July 1 with no budget. And to make matters worse, the mayor never made the document available to the public. As mayor, I will correct these problems. First, as mayor, when I send the budget to the city council, I will post it on the city’s Web site simultaneously; I will also make copies available at the city clerk’s office. I value the input and insights of my constituents. When I was the city’s interim mayor in 2001, I was the first mayor to put the city’s budget on the city’s Web site. It is absurd that in 2005 a municipality such as ours cannot place a document on its Web site when it is released to the City Council. How can the residents of Lawrence comment on the budget to their councilors if they cannot see the budget? To correct the mayor’s error, I posted the document on my own Web site for all to see. Interested parties can view the document on my Web site, www.deversforlawrence.com. If I can do this, why cannot the city? Second, as mayor I will send my proposed budget to the Council by May 1st each year. The delivery of a budget proposal three weeks before the beginning of the fiscal year as the mayor has done shows a lack of a desire to cooperate with the City Council, and it shows a lack of cooperation between the mayor and the public, the very people who are going to fund our budget. Maybe the mayor just does not care. As a councilor I know what needs to be done to get a budget completed on time and in balance. I want to work with the Council to meet those goals. This will give the Council and the public eight weeks to review and debate the document and craft any desired changes. By missing the July 1st start of the fiscal year, the mayor only encourages poor spending practices to continue until a new budget starts, and it prevents the city from pursuing any new policy initiatives for the full fiscal year. Ten years ago the law used to require May 1st as the submittal date. It is a date I will voluntarily follow and seek to be instituted as city ordinance. Third, the mayor’s budget states no public policy initiatives that he wants to implement for the city. Initiatives designed to tighten spending controls will be a priority under a Devers administration. I will offer initiatives that will also implement the vision I have stated throughout my campaign – enhancing our economic development and jobs growth, fixing our schools, and improving our quality of life. If you want someone to tell you how we are going to spend your tax dollars wisely to improve our city with all of us working together, hire me as mayor. Finally, the mayor presented a document to us with proposed numbers for the next fiscal year compared against the numbers that were approved for our current fiscal year. The problem with that is there are no expenses to compare the numbers to. Until we know what this year’s expenses are, we will not be able to properly assess the budget’s balance or imbalance. As mayor, I will provide the Council with expenses to date for each line item when I submit my proposal by May 1 each year. The budget is a process that
affects every resident and business that pays taxes to
the city. These reforms will restore fiscal sanity
to our process and help us balance our budget without
constant state supervision. If we do not get our
fiscal house in order, we may fall prey to the very
forces that drove Chelsea, Springfield, and other cities
into a budgetary morass. As mayor, I will provide
the leadership the city needs to spend tax dollars
wisely, responsibly, and publicly. *Send your questions
comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com |
The
Lawrence City Council is presently reviewing the proposed
FY2006 city budget. We received this document from
the mayor on June 7th, just three weeks before the start
of the city’s next fiscal year. By sending the
budget to us so late, the mayor continues to put the
city’s fiscal health in jeopardy. As mayor I
intend to implement several reforms to improve the
city’s budget process and restore fiscal integrity
and public confidence in the city’s government.