From The Engine Room

It was one of those trick city manager interview questions.  “Are you more like Captain Kirk, full of passion, or Spock, full of logic?”.  The alderwomen smiled and leaned in.  She knew she asked a tough one, and I’m supposed to struggle with it.  “Neither” I reply.  “I’m Scotty”.  “It's my job to make the thing go”.

Passion’s fine.  Logic’s good.  Pragmatism beats them both.  Success in practical application is where the rubber meets the road.  Next year’s budget road has about $730,000 of potholes in it, and Finance Director Wright hands out two ways to look at the road ahead at today’s department head meeting.  One way to solve the projected $730,000 gap between operating revenue and expense in the budget year starting July 1, 2015 is to reduce each department’s projected expenses for the next budget year by 1.75%.  In that scenario, Police and Fire budgets increase from $26,919,750 this year to $27,051,371 next year, and they have to find a combined $487,671 to cut from next year’s budget request.

Public safety’s our first responsibility, so I ask Brandon to also prepare a scenario where Police and Fire only have to cut half the percentage other departments need to cut.  This gives Police and Fire an additional $372,956 in operating funds for the upcoming budget year, and makes every other department’s budget exercise more difficult.  Such are the challenges cities face, and there’s little use complaining about them.

There’s also little use, as I and the department heads agree, in drama.  We have a projected $730,000 gap between operating expenses and revenue.  We’re professionals, and it’s our job to fix problems at that scale.  We could make more of a show of it, with several weeks of distraction, debate and confusion.  We could ask the City Council to wrestle with problems we can solve, but their attention is best directed to higher order, policy initiatives.  Our plan is to deliver a balanced budget to the Council when they first see it in January.

Brandon asks for each department to prepare a cost saving plan by next Friday.  I have $30,249 to cut from Admin’s budget.  The dilithium crystals will have to last another year.