With a self-imposed deadline of March 1 to have the city’s budget for Fiscal Year 2019 completed and before the Municipal Accountability Review Board (MARB) for approval, Mayor Nancy R. Rossi said most of the next two weeks are going to be busy.
The March 1 deadline came about after the state’s Office of Policy and Management put the city under the MARB umbrella following the sale of bonds to eliminate the 12-year-old operating deficit, which ballooned to more than $17 million. In November, just prior to the election, the city was able to make good on an earlier City Council approval, and sold a $27 million bond issue, with the bulk of it going toward the deficit.
With the MARB now in control of city finances, the budget must be given the panel’s imprimatur before it goes to the City Council. Rossi has set the special session of the council for two weeks later, March 15, as prescribed by the city charter.
Answering a set of questions posed this week, Mayor Rossi was asked about a comment she made in a column two weeks ago, promising that the city’s mill rate would not increase under her still-to-be-completed plan.
“We are working on the budget and I will be spending most of my time the next two weeks thoroughly reviewing each department and dissecting each line item. There will be no tax increase proposed, but that will require deep cuts in the budget and no department will be immune,” she said.
She indicated the strategy employed by the administration will be on last attempted in the 1990s: reorganization.
“We are looking at some reorganization that may lead to fewer positions,” she said..
Asked if she had the general outlines of the budget completed, Rossi said the plan is still in the formative stages.
“We are still in the early stages of the budget preparation,” she said. “The departments have submitted their requests. I also asked each department to provide me with a 10 percent budget reduction option. I am reviewing those options.”
Under the administration of former Mayor John Picard, the city’s debt service became a burden in the budget process. Rossi was asked about debt service and what problems, if any, the city might be facing
“One of the major issues in this budget will be the increase required in debt service (loan payments) because of the $27 million in bonding (borrowing) by the previous administration in November,” she said. “The increase in debt service (from the $27 million in bonding) is expected to about $3 million annually.”
Asked if the administration had seen an surprises in the budgeting process, Rossi said things are coming out as expected.
“We are too early in the process but at this point but we are finding what we expected — that the city budget was not developed or monitored properly,” she said.
One of the wild cards in the city’s ongoing financial difficulties has been city unions. While the unions have borne the brunt of changes in the past, their cooperation in this latest budget crisis was being questioned in some quarters. Rossi said she believes the unions have been cooperating.
“Most of the city union contracts are being negotiated. Once they have a tentative agreement they will need to have those agreements reviewed by the Municipal Accountability Review Board (MARB) before it is sent to the City Council,” she said. “I think the unions have been very supportive so far and they understand the magnitude of financial problems the city is facing.”
Looking toward the completion of the process, Rossi said she expects to have things ready for the MARB review and then the charter-required parsing by the City Council.
“I will work tirelessly to ensure that a recommended budget is submitted to the MARB by their March 1 meeting for review and to the City Council by March 15, as required in the City Charter,” she said. “I look forward to working with the City Council to provide a thoroughly vetted and balanced budget.”