Staff Gains Greater Responsibility in Village Budget Duties

Most Village Board members think its a good idea to spend less time going over the 2011-2012 village budget line by line and entrust the administration to take on greater responsibility in the budget process, according to an unofficial poll of the board at its Feb. 7 meeting.

Along with that direction, comes an indirect task for trustees; to focus their energy on policy making instead of going through the budget line by line, as was done with the 2010-2011 budget.

Board members who approved handing the reigns over to administration included trustees Jonathan Sprawka, Jim Johnson and Dana Rzeznik.

“I think we refined it (the budget) and defined it pretty well last year, and we should move on to the policy making part of being a trustee,” said Johnson.

Sprawka said the board needs to shift its approach to a more strategic way of looking at the budget. 

“We need to set the strategies to address the TIF debt, stalled downtown redevelopment and the $26 million in underfunding for police and fire pensions,” said Sprawka.

“I want to allow staff to put the nuts and bolts together; now is the time to place our trust in them, and if we can’t get the budget right we would have to make management changes,” said Sprawka. 

Trustees Jeff Halen, Tom Poynton and Rich Sustich disagreed that changes should be made to the budget schedule; changes that would signify less trustee involvement.

“I would say that we keep the proposed schedule that Administrator Vitas had provided the board,” said Halen. 

“This isn’t the time to just stop doing what we are doing, we need to make sure we are watching our p’s and q’s,” said Poynton. “We did what we did in the past, because there was a community concern over full transparency.”

“Next year we would really have the confidence to look at it in the way that Trustee Sprawka suggested,” said Sustich. “I think we should continue with the plan as proposed.”

After discussion from the board and a deadlock amongst the trustees, Mayor Suzanne Branding weighed in.

“Let’s turn it over to the staff and let’s go from there; let’s see how it goes this year,” said Branding.

Branding then requested that Administrator Bob Vitas prepare a revised budget schedule to reflect it being handled by Vitas and his department heads.

“I don’t think you have to be worried about the minimal spending left in the budget, but more on the global policy issues that produce what will please residents instead of looking at every little nickel,” said Vitas.

“We have a budget schedule, a lot of the goals (of trustees) should be made during the presentations of different department heads,” said Vitas.

“This is a policy issue and the administration simply responds to policy,” said Vitas.

Changes to the budget schedule havn't yet been made, but according to Deputy Village Clerk Susan Ragsdale, any modifications will be completed by the week of Feb. 21, before budget discussions begin in early March.