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| Money - Black and White Money (Photo credit: @Doug88888) |
Two of the councilmembers and Mayor delighted in pointing
out in public last Tuesday that I had come in over budget this past year by $3,543.86
out of a total council budget of $408,836.71. (Not to diminish the error but this amounts to .008 percent of my budget.)
I had been under budget for
11 months and in September (last month before the budget year ends) I was
presented with an additional $1,336.88 in xeroxing charges and $747.10 and
$1,246.79 in charges to use an IPAD to access the City Clerk’s Legistar system
while in City Council.
I take responsibility for an
overage. Just wished I had been given those charges earlier in the year so I
could have cut something else.
I would like to point out
some facts these councilmembers and the Mayor failed to point out about the 5th
District budget since 2009:
2009 – under budget by
$273.00
2010 – under budget by
$3,957.00
2011 – under budget by $13,001.00.
After the wailing, gnashing of teeth and beating of their breasts about where or where would the City Manager find the money to offset this overspending, I offered to make a
corresponding cut in the 2013 5th district budget of $3,544.00.
Below is my budget for 2012 -- which is the same amount as every other councilmember. The budgeting system is very convoluted with City charges and projected salary savings and other items that don't make much sense to the average person. (By the way the council and Mayor budgets are never shown by line item in the City budget document. The one I am including is probably your first look at what a council office budget looks like line by line.)
I am still trying to find out why I was charged $20 for Fleet Services; an extra 32 cents for Email and webservices; an extra .36 cents for desktop support.
