Fresh from the fields of finance, the operating budget. Overall a B+. The members of the BET, Common Council and BOE deserve some kudos for keeping the budget within the umbrella of inflation. That’s been no easy feat considering revenues these days are somewhat precarious. So the Hour identifies the following:
Look for several more police officers and firefighters, but otherwise restrained spending in the $273.7-million operating budget headed toward adoption by the Board of Estimate and Taxation.
On May 5, the Board of Estimate is set to adopt the city’s 2008-09 operating budget.
At $273,701,346, the tentative budget is up 4.3 percent from current spending, and would boost the average mill rate on a single-family home in the 4th Taxing District by 3.8 percent, according to Director of Finance Thomas S. Hamilton.
Under the tentative budget, Board of Education spending stands to rise 4 percent, if one accounts for an additional $962,000 in state aid added to the approved 2007-08 budget.
The city’s Police and Fire departments stand to receive the biggest boosts under the new operating budget. The fire department budget stands to increase by 9.1 percent to $14.8 million. The police department budget would rise by 8.8 percent to $18.8 million, according to the Department of Finance. The budgets for those departments includes money to refill three vacant police patrol officer positions and to hire two more fire lieutenants.
The tentative budget also includes funding to hire an early childhood planner for the Youth Services Department and a zoning compliance assistant for the Department of Planning and Zoning.
The budget does not include $81,241 to hire a Geographics Information System analyst, who would work to streamline city mapping to better locate storm drains and other infrastructure.
Now, if I were anything other than a fake fake journalist, I would be wondering what the increases in roads to be paved, bridges to be repaired, and trash to be picked up and removed to an undisclosed location (but not with Vice President Cheney) have come in at if anything. It would be cool to compare and contrast the spending levels in those areas year to year.
I’d also, were I not a fake fake journalist, be asking about how the Water Pollution Auhtority is managing to bill those water users in the first taxing district. You know, the ones that the first taxing district is keeping top secret, borrowing a tactic out of the Vice President’s rubber stamp drawer. I’d investigate what the cost in legal fees the city and the first taxing district is incurring by making billing for water usage something out of a Sinclair Lewis novel.
But alas, I will have to turn to the Courant to gain an appreciation of what a table of numbers could look at when reporting on budgets.
source: Hour, More police, firefighters in 2008-09 budget, by Robert Koch, April 30, 2008
