At the end of Tuesday’s City Council, a
confused Springfield police officer asked reporters, “Is this
a recess?” No, it was just a surprisingly short meeting,
given that the council was supposed to act on the city budget,
perhaps the most important piece of business they deal with each
year. But thanks to a tougher-than-expected merger
between the Springfield and Sangamon County health departments,
some aldermen had misgivings about passing the budget too hastily. Frank Edwards suggested a delay; his
colleague at the other end of the horseshoe, Bruce Strom, agreed. “Today, there’s no urgency to
pass our budget,” Strom said. Sangamon County officials, Strom said, have shown
a strong willingness to see the merger to fruition. “I think that
you, sir, have shown a strong willingness to find a way not to make it
happen,” Strom said, referring to Mayor Tim Davlin. After Joe Bartolomucci’s motion to
postpone the vote for two weeks, and Judy Yeager’s second,
the rest of the council, with the exception of Chuck Redpath and
Mark Mahoney, seemed delighted at the prospect of getting out of
school early. Aldermen voted 7-2 to table the budget until
the next council meeting. The latest version of Davlin’s original
$92.9 million budget is lighter by a fire truck and 13 squad cars,
which would have been financed from the money the city hopes to
save on running its health department. In case the merger takes even longer, Davlin
said, “There’s enough in this budget to run the [city]
health department for a couple months and that’s certainly
not my intention.” By law, the city budget must be passed by
March 1, when the next fiscal year begins.
This article appears in Feb 9-15, 2006.
