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As the city prepares for its annual budgeting process,
the City Council’s new aldermen are already promising to shake things
up. At a recent budget workshop with
representatives of the Department of Public Works, Ward 7 Ald. Debbie
Cimarossa questioned director Mike Norris about temporary workers’
salaries. According to the current public-works budget, the city pays
$350,000 in temporary salaries to garage employees and $110,000 to cemetery
employees — figures Cimarossa calls staggering.
“It’s unbelievable
what they spend in temporary service,” Cimarossa says. “I
realize we have seasonal needs, but some of these costs are
exorbitant.”
The solution, she says, will call
for aldermen to identify discrepancies in the need and actual employee
numbers as they consider the city’s budget, especially in the
public-works department, which has been continually short-staffed. Ward 6 Ald. Mark Mahoney says he
expects the new aldermen to be more inquisitive and aggressive as they work
through the budget process.
“We want to know what they
need to get the job done,” Mahoney says. “If it requires more
equipment or more manpower, they need to lay that out to us.”
Aldermen will hear from the police
department at the city’s next budget workshop, which will follow the
Oct. 30 finance committee meeting.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2007.
