Discussing pennies and nickels, glossing over dollars

Last night (2/3/09), the City Council spent at least a half hour discussing the budget for training for city employees. The HR person described how the training budget was cut in half from over $100K to about $60K (keeping 10 different programs at about $6K each.) Earlier in January, the Council spent time discussing a $7,000 expenditure on office furniture.

Contrast that with the approval, in December, of 53 police laptops each costing about $4,000 or the approval of a license/support contract with Microsoft for $200K in July. Likewise, last night, little discussion was spent on a major adjustment to the proposed budget to eliminate the tax increase ($200K) by delaying some financing and saving interest paid.

Alderman Wynne asked the finance director about which items were one-time additions to revenues and which were on-going. Somewhere lost in the conversation was the fact that Northwestern University's offer to pay $100K for a new salt dome was a one-time event compared to a proposed increase in the athletic event tax expected to raise the same amount.

The Council is to be commended on understanding the value of training for a hollowed out city staff. Their vigilance in questioning the rational for office furniture is appreciated. Most people are familiar with employee training or furniture, but are not experienced with information technology or the finer points of finance.

As a candidate for 7th Ward Alderman, I offer my professional experience in finance and IT. As alderman examining the '10-11 budget, I will ask many more questions about the $2.4M budgeted for information systems (p. 87 of the budget) or re-financing options for the sewage/water bonds to eliminate any further increases in water rates.