More on the City Budget

There’s a totally awesome story in this week’s Fitchburg Pride about the city’s budget and a few councilors talking about lowering property taxes even as layoffs are possible. Here’s a few more things councilors said about the budget and city’s situation that didn’t get into the paper:

“My main concern, the thing I don’t want to see, is any anticipated monies that are not real. (Mayor Dan Mylott has) done that too many times for us in the past. Anticipated money from the state, land sales, whatever,” said Councilor Jody Joseph.

“I think in the short term what we ought to be looking at is the table of organization in our largest departments. And as uncorrect as this may be politically, primarily my targets are the Fire Department and the Police Department,” said Councilor Ted DeSalvatore.

“Leominster has one captain in their Police Department. Recently, our chief looked for room for a fourth. If you have a functioning Police Department with one captain, and the cost of one captain, what can’t we do that here? What’s the difference? What are the shortcomings in the City of Fitchburg that we can’t accomplish it like they do in the City of Leominster,” DeSalvatore said.

“Any additional revenue we receive through growth or the state should be viewed as a blessing. If the city practices proper financial management, I believe our current budget of $95 million (Fiscal ’07) should be sufficient. Any large increase should be viewed as fiscally irresponsible. Furthermore, a respectable amount of the any additional monies should be allocated to an emergency account,” Councilor Dean Tran said.

“I think was we need to do now is, if we have a $94 million budget, and that’s all there is, we should be looking at a $92 million budget. We shouldn’t spend everything we have,” Councilor Jesus “Jay” Cruz.

“I, for one, don’t want an override. That’s why there are people like us in office, to prevent that from happening,” Cruz said.

It's going to be an interesting, and bumpy ride the rest of the way through this budget process. Unsaid in great, snappy quotes is a desire to make sure the budget is done right this year, and there is frustration from councilors toward the mayor. Joseph said he wants to start budget talks in early May, creating two months for negotiation and talks to get the budget done. Let the games begin.