Start early to avoid craps-shoot budget
Very early in the budget process, I wrote to the mayor, parks director and police director, and let them know exactly what was needed in Frayser, one of the areas I represent — . s i dewalks at Corning Elementary and a new park in the wooded area behind Denver Elementary.
In my letter, I wrote about how transformative these items would be for the Frayser community. The woods behind Denver Elementary had been a haven for gangs until fed-up neighbors and the Memphis Police Department reclaimed them. The walking route to Corning Elementary was one of the most dangerous in the city for the children going to and from school.
Both items were ultimately funded in the budget, but not because the process works at all. In fact, a member of the mayor’s budget review committee, which helps put together his proposed budget, testified that they never even discussed these projects.
At about the same time I wrote to the mayor, it appears someone else may have contacted him about building a $ 3.5 million bridge for International Paper employees to walk to and from the Chick-filA on Poplar Avenue. The corporate subsidy to International Paper was, it appears, recommended for approval by the same committee, made part of the mayor’s budget, and ultimately partially funded by the council at the tail end of a seven-hour meeting. This is emblematic of a budget process that has little credibility and virtually no oversight.
How does one begin to improve this process?
First, the mayor should increase oversight of a sprawling city government with its divisions, departments and agencies. Strangely, some agencies that rely on public resources, like the Convention and Visitors Bureau, don’t even bother to show up and participate in the budget process. Others, like EDGE, participate but don’t provide any relevant information about how they use the public resources they receive.
Other divisions of city government come to the council and propose public spending — like the International Paper bridge — for projects that are patently wasteful and only create more cynicism about city government.
In their defense, in most cases the top bureaucrats at the various divisions of city government are overworked; in many cases, they are underpaid; and in all cases, they are well intentioned.
Yet without direct oversight, there is no real downside risk when they propose to the council giving millions to IP or avoid discussing funding sidewalks for schoolkids. Plus, since these good folks have no real reason to try to collaborate with the council during the early period of drafting a budget, it sets the stage later for an adversarial budget process between the mayor and a council that has been left out of the loop.
Second, the council should provide real oversight of the mayor during the budget hearing process. The council routinely asked the mayor for leadership this year. To his credit, he showed up. Despite enormous political costs to himself, several times he returned to the budget committee with myriad options and at least three different budgets.
Each time he did, the council wasn’t ready to dance. The council spent little serious time fulfilling its role in the process, which would minimally require scrutinizing, discussing and voting on the various options brought to budget hearings.
Media reports that the council is going line by line in the proposed budget and making cuts are hogwash. The truth is that once an item is in the mayor’s proposed budget, as far as the council is concerned, that item is sacrosanct.
There are no line-byline cuts or debates about significant looming items, like restoration of employee wages. Instead, the process becomes an opportunity to make bold statements, make no cuts and ultimately delay for as long as possible the resolution of anything having to do with the budget. Many council members, rightly, don’t even show for budget hearings.
We delay fulfilling our leadership role until one fateful June evening. By that time, there is little we can do except blow on the dice, close our eyes and throw. Lee Harris represents District 7 on the Memphis City Council.