Stewart to Submit Budget to Council April 10th

Republican Mayor Erin Stewart is to officially submit her city budget for the upcoming year at a special meeting of the City Council to be held on April 10th.

The April 10, 2019 special Council meeting Stewart has called is set to begin at 6:45pm, immediately prior to the 7:00pm regular Council meeting.

Under the City Charter, the mayor’s budget consists of funding line items in different areas of city government and education, and a property tax mill rate.

City Council Democrats came out in opposition to the budget plan proposed in March by the Stewart-appointed city Board of Finance and Taxation, saying that it, “proposed a $13,390,779 general fund budget increase, which would raise the mill rate by 5 mills and increase property taxes within the City by nearly 10%.”

While increasing the city budget from $237,729,089 to $251,119,868, the Finance Board’s proposal would freeze the schools allocation for yet another year. The city budgets under Stewart have not increased funding for city schools since the budget approved in 2016, and her Finance Board’s plan would extend that freeze in education support to a third straight year.

Stewart’s budget proposal can differ from her Finance Board’s plan, however.

After Stewart’s budget plan is submitted, the Council will have sixty days, under the Charter, to consider her budget. That would make the deadline for Council action Sunday, June 9th.

Before that deadline, the Charter provides that the Council is to hold at least one hearing to allow the public to express opinions on the mayor’s budget plan.

While the Council is then technically able to approve a budget different than the mayor’s proposal, the mayor can veto it. Unless that Council can overturn the mayor’s veto by the June 9th deadline, the mayor’s budget takes effect without the Council’s approval.

Since “overriding” a veto takes the support of ten of the fifteen Council members, and there are nine Democrats and six Republicans, Stewart and the Council Republicans can block the Democrats from approving their own budget plan.

That is effectively what happened last year, making the city budget currently in effect, with a tax increase and a freeze in education funding, entirely the decision of Stewart and not Council Democrats.

The new city budget resulting from the process presently underway will take effect on July 1, 2019 and continue over the fiscal year going until June 30, 2020. The budget will also include the property tax mill rate for tax bills that will go out this July and in January of 2020.

The Council meeting will be held in City Hall at 27 West Main Street.