Reconciling Rhetoric With Results

could have written my column this week.

The approved Highland Park's budget for 2012  Considering the amount of leading up to the , this final budget surprises me in how little it differs from the

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When submitted the draft of what was his final city budget proposal, . Though there were a few surprises, including the substantial percentage increase in sewer rates, the 2012 budget proposal looked like actual spending for 2011, 2010 and 2009. 

Six weeks later, how did the budget cycle play out?

One promise that and the city council delivered on was to make the budget process . The draft budget came in earlier than in years past, and city elected officials have held numerous open budget discussions. The mayor and council even moved the time and location of budget hearings in order for more of the meetings to be aired on community access television.

Yet, the final budget is a far cry from the on the campaign trail. True, there's no property tax increase. However, the city is asking for a bigger piece of our wallets with the 12 percent increase in storm sewer rates and more than 20 percent increase in sanitary sewer rates. The actual dollars per household increase will be fairly small--the city projects an average increase of $78 per household in city expenditures in 2012. However, as Councilman Naftzger noted during the budget vote--where he alone voted against approving the overall budget--a "re-prioritized" budget could have avoided any increased burden on city residents. Naftzger also noted that the city is projecting a $1 million surplus versus the 2011 budget. Instead of returning that money to residents, the mayor and council approved the sewer rate increase, which will generate about $300,000.

I am also surprised by the way the financial reserves have been handled. The rhetoric from the campaign trail was fierce on this topic, with  stating that reserves should be used for labor negotiations, emergencies, revenue shortfalls and nothing else.

"You can’t continue to spend down our reserves," Rotering said while campaigning, "Or you won’t have sufficient reserves for when you really do need them.” 

Actually, this year we are ending up with a surplus. Perhaps that is why during the budget process,  on those reserves with a fairly different tone: "As long as , consider using spare reserves for one-time capital asset improvements." In the final budget, $475,000 from reserves is allocated to capital improvements. 

To be clear, I'm okay with Mayor Rotering's approach. As she and others have said, the library is a unique city treasure, used more than any other municipal facility. However, I am having a hard time reconciling the campaign promises of "it's about your money" and doing things differently with what's unfolded during the budget process. It seems that the approved budget does exactly what that Rotering attacked for proposing during the campaign. It spends part of the reserves on something other than an emergency, and it increases fees rather than lowering them or lowering taxes.

If I may anticipate the apologists, I expect to hear two retorts. The first will be that Limardi is still city manager, so of course the budget still looks like his policies and approach. The second will be that six months isn't enough time to start the kinds of inter-organizational collaboration proposed to find economies of scale and redundancies. On the first, Limardi may still be around, but the council has had months to reshape his proposed budget. There just hasn't been that much change, despite four new sets of eyes and a new mayor. On the second, that I'll grant. Wheels of government turn slowly. Almost all of the council commented during the budget vote that they continue to see the opportunity for inter-governmental cooperation; only Naftzger admitted that the Council had failed in the opportunity to start such optimization for 2012's budget. 

The 2012 budget process was one of the first measurable ways we could examine the type of government that Mayor Rotering and the new city council majority want for Highland Park. In my layman's examination of the budget, I find few flaws. I also appreciate the hard work that our city government invested in the budget process. But in approving a budget so similar to budgets of the past, it seems like the city council and new mayor are acknowledging what I said in my : the city of Highland Park operates pretty efficiently. 

I hope that in the next budget cycle the rhetoric matches that reality.