WESTFIELD – Three City Council members have submitted a petition to conduct a special meeting on the proposed 2015 fiscal year budget Thursday before the regular meeting is called to order.
At-large Councilors David A. Flaherty and Dan Allie and Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell submitted the petition under City Charter and Council Rules Section 2-37 which allows a group of no less than three (3) City Council members to call their own meeting.
The meeting was posted on the city’s website for 6 p.m. on June 19th for the purpose of presenting the proposed budget to attendees and then to conduct a hearing to allow public comment.
The meeting can be held only if there is a quorum of seven City Council members present, which in the case of Thursday when two council members will be absent, means that seven of the remaining 11 members have to be present.
Flaherty and O’Connell have called for special meetings in the past, requesting a special meeting on October of 2012 to fill the Ward 2 seat vacated by James Brown Jr., who resigned.
O’Connell filed that special meeting petition, joined by Flaherty and At-large Councilor Agma Sweeney for a special meeting on three separate nights, including Thursday before a regular meeting of the City Council, and failed to attain the quorum required to open the special meeting.
“That’s the risk they take,” said Finance Chairman Christopher Keefe, who last week concluded an intense review of the major departmental cost centers in the FY 2015 budget, this morning. “There is no guarantee that you will get a quorum.”
Keefe said that the Finance Committee will present the budget, as amended Wednesday by a Committee of the Whole at which all councilor members can make motions to cut spending, and requested the council members to suspend the rules to allow two separate votes on the budget.
If any council member objects to suspending the rules, as Flaherty has done in the past, the council may not have sufficient time to call another meeting 10 days later to vote on the amended budget. If a second reading and final passage vote is not taken, the budget as submitted by Mayor Daniel M. Knapik goes into effect, by default, on July 1, the first day of the new fiscal year.
“This is not unexpected” said Councilor Flaherty said in a prepared release sent to media outlets yesterday. “Nobody has been willing to admit that we have a spending problem, and nobody has been willing to do what it takes to live within our means.
“Last year we had problems, this year bigger problems, and next year even bigger problems,” Flaherty said. “That’s what happens when you spend more than you can possible take in. This year’s city spending is going up over 3 percent.”
“The math just doesn’t work when property tax revenue is limited by Prop 2 1/2, and the state local aid numbers are flat,” Flaherty said. “We’ve know this for a while, yet the city keeps agreeing to labor and benefit increases that exceed our ability to pay for them. We need to slow the grown rate in spending.”
Flaherty’s release also encouraged members of the public to attend the 6 p.m. session Thursday.
“These three City Councilors are asking the public to attend the meeting to express their concerns about tax increases, and to speak about the proposed budget,” Flaherty said.
“Discussions about specific line-item budget cuts are encouraged since that is the only way councilors can reduce the budget and ultimately the tax rates. Longer term issues such as department reorganization, or teaming arrangements with neighboring communities, are issues that cannot possibly be addressed in one night. The City Council is expected to vote on the budget later Thursday evening. The entire budget is available for public viewing on the city website.”
