The Seattle City Council is already threatening to rewrite Mayor Nickels' proposed budget. But don't buy it. In fact, given the council's previous tough talk about the budgeting process earlier this year (and its subsequent failure to act), all this huffing and puffing looks like more political posturing.
Budgeting is difficult this year. Even though there's been a slight increase in city revenues, we've also seen a proportionally greater increase in inflation, rising debt payments on the $284 million civic center, soaring employee health care costs, and far smaller revenue growth than anticipated. Mayor Nickels is facing a $60 million shortfall.
That means cuts, cuts, cuts! Nickels is recommending slashing public health, arts, neighborhood, transportation, and human services budgets.
The outcry from city council (the group responsible for approving the budget) came instantaneously. "There are some inconsistencies [between the mayor's budget and] the council's priorities," human services champion and Council President Peter Steinbrueck warned the Post Intellegencer on Monday.
"There are some real troubling things that we've found already," Council Member Richard Conlin told the Times.
Thing is, the time to take control of the budget has already passed. Earlier this year, the council made noise about revamping the budget process in its favor. In July, the council considered granting itself oversight at the programming and direct service levels, as opposed to controlling what is known as the "line of business" level. A "line of business"--say, the "Human Services Department"--is more generalized than a program--say, "Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention." By only controlling "lines of business," the council can't make specific decisions about how departments spend money.
At a July 30 budget committee meeting, the council considered increasing the "lines of business" it oversees by something like 400 percent--a de facto way of controlling more programs. They lost their nerve.
Without amping up its level of oversight, the council is now hampered when it comes to reforming the mayor's budget. After all, the mayor controls city departments. Unless the council passes program-level mandates, the mayor can ignore the council's specific wish list--as he did last February, cutting social programs.
The saving grace for the council may be something called a budget proviso--a case-by-case directive that places a budget condition on departments to fund specific programs. Short of passing scores of budget provisos (which isn't likely, given how awkward it would be for any council member to round up votes for his or her pet project), the council won't be able to rewrite the mayor's budget--huffing and puffing by Steinbrueck and Conlin aside--until it rewrites the whole process.
