City budget is unloved, unsponsored
May 5, 2008 at 4:55 pm by Scott Henry in NewsThey say success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan. It may say something about Mayor Shirley Franklin’s proposed budget that it, too, is an orphan – at least where the City Council is concerned.
Let us explain: Typically, when the Mayor has legislation she wants to bring before the Council, she gets a willing Council member to carry it. But this budget includes hundreds of layoffs and a $40 million tax increase. So, for the first time in her tenure, Franklin couldn’t find any Council member willing to put his or her name on the legislation. Even Cleta Winslow, the Mayor’s most ardent loyalist, reputedly read Franklin’s staff the riot act last week. A panic ensued among the Mayor’s top brass over how to get the budget package formally introduced at today’s Council meeting, as required by law.
The compromise was a hastily called special meeting of the Council Finance Committee, which voted – under sometimes vocal protest – to pass the budget items on to the full Council in such a way that no individual member would be regarded as a sponsor. The final vote came moments before the Council meeting was called to order.
Now that the budget proposal has been introduced, you can expect to hear plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Council before it must approve a final version by June 30.
Send to a friend:
Leave a Reply