From the Round Table: As budget conflict escalates, city should stick to charter guidelines

As budget conflict escalates, city should stick to charter guidelines

Former city manager Ray Beck was fond of referring to Columbia as a “full service city.” By that, he meant a community that, over the years, has chosen to provide an ever-expanding rainbow of municipal services. Beyond the traditional city essentials, including police, fire and public works, as well as the water and light department, a more recently conceived blanket of social and recreational services now figures in the annual budgeting process.

Representatives of various constituencies line up by the dozens each year to make the case for their chosen program or activity. The slightest threat to their funding stream can turn an otherwise dull budget hearing into an animated, almost warlike proceeding. It’s an annual rite; so prepare yourself over the coming weeks for a series of emotion-charged gatherings as Columbia works its way through the budgeting process over a fiscal year, when revenues aren’t expected to grow very much.

Sparks have already been drawn between city administrators, the city council and various constituencies over seemingly minor line-item reductions tentatively blue-penciled in the proposed budget.  This has led several members of the council to propose increasing the funds set aside to a so-called “undesignated fund.” This comes through transfers from other lines in the budget giving council people another source of funds to allocate as that body chooses to do, apparently working outside of the traditional budgeting procedure traditionally administered by the city management team.

Although it’s not yet at the level of turning into a constitutional crisis, a conflict appears to be developing between Columbia city administrators and several members of the city council as to how each side interprets the budgeting process as it has evolved since the original city charter was passed in 1949.

Ray Beck was especially proud of the city’s public transit system. Rescued in 1965 from its abandonment by a private operator, municipal transit has seen its ridership increase over the years because the city has made major investments in transit infrastructure while becoming more aggressive about routes, scheduling and promotion.

Unprofitable as most passenger transportation ventures invariably turn out to be, Columbia Transit has held the line on fare increases over the years in the face of substantial operational cost increases recently exacerbated by a dramatic rise in fuel prices. While it made perfect financial sense for the city administration to propose increasing fares to cover these mounting costs, the council is trying to decide whether to freeze fares, weighing the impact higher costs would have on lower and middle-income patrons of the system.

This is ironic. Frozen revenue makes it even more difficult for the city to even think about giving raises to its drivers and transportation maintenance personnel in the Public Works Department! While municipal transit patrons celebrate their good fortune, where’s the reward for the transit employees who provide the bounties of our full-service city?

It’s hard to envy Columbia City Manager Bill Watkins, as he is currently enveloped in the cauldron of the annual municipal budgeting process. It’s convenient for many of us to forget that Columbia is a municipal corporation bound under accepted rules and procedures to a balanced budget in the face of the rising cacophony of needs and uncertain, difficult-to-predict streams of income.

It is important that everyone stays within the legal boundaries that govern the community. Columbia has functioned for almost 60 years under the terms of a charter that clearly defines the respective roles of its elected representatives and those it designates to manage the municipality. My Fourth Estate confreres and I will be monitoring the budgeting process to make certain it follows the guidelines laid out by the city’s own charter.

Al Germond is the host of the “Columbia Business Times Sunday Morning Roundtable” every Sunday at 8:15 a.m. on kfru. He can be reached at [email protected].