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Ward 7 Ald. Debbie Cimarossa means business.
As promised, she’s combing through the proposed
fiscal year 2009 budget, considering every line and demanding justification
from city directors. The other six new aldermen are right behind her
— searching for ways to trim fat and to save Springfield from
financial doom.
They’re now a third of the way through the
budget process — hearing from such departments as the mayor’s
office, community relations, and, on Wednesday, public works — and
they say they’ve already identified a few potential ways to slash the
city’s “no-frills, bare-bones budget.”
Cimarossa says travel expenses should be the first to
go. She isn’t opposed to the mayor’s
traveling to promote the city or employees’ traveling to maintain
certifications, she says, but she is opposed to sending two or three people
to annual conferences when they could instead conduct research using the
Internet. According to the proposed fiscal year 2009 budget,
community relations wants $34,000 earmarked for travel expenses. The office
used slightly more than $16,000 in 2007. Other offices, such as homeland
security, are also requesting increases in travel expenses, up from nearly
$2,900 in 2007 to $6,000 for 2009.
“I don’t think a person has to go to a
conference every year — I never went to a conference every
year,” Cimarossa, a former city employee, says. “When the money
is tight, you cut back on travel.” Other new aldermen, among them
Ward 8 Ald. Kris Theilen, question the need for new office and kitchen
furniture.
Larry Selinger, director of human resources, told
aldermen last week that his department needs $3,800 set aside for new
furniture in 2009. According to his budget, the department spent roughly
$800 on the same line item in 2007.
Theilen says he has noticed that many departments are
requesting new computers and software, but he believes that some of them
may be able to work with what they have until next year.
“It’s one of those things: Use the old
stuff; we don’t have the money this year,” Theilen says.
“I’m an IT person — that’s my job — and,
depending on how old the computers are, I would like to see
justification.”
Ward 2 Ald. Gail Simpson is taking a different route.
She says she doesn’t think cutting travel or
office equipment will make much difference; instead, she’s looking at
expenditures that amount to more than 0.02 percent of the entire budget. If
a director can’t explain a dire need for those budgeted expenditures,
Simpson says, they should be snipped. Even if they don’t immediately agree how
it’s accomplished, Theilen says, all of the aldermen acknowledge that
cuts must be made to the city’s proposed $205.6 million budget. “Every aldermen I’ve spoken with has the
same attitude,” he says. “We’re trying to be fiscally
responsible.”
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2008.
