Budget Process Begins: How to Spend $180M
The first of three budget hearings held before the City Council had directors of several departments explain their requests.
The budget for city departments can be viewed here.
First up was City Solicitor Lisa Ball, who requested $25,000 less than last year for outside counsel services. She said that her staff is managing court cases and clarifications (for the mayor and city councilors who request it for ordinances and a slew of matters.) Instead of requesting $100,000 for outside counsel, she is requesting $85,000.
“So much of the work is getting done inside the law department. I know all of you got the litigation update that we sent to the council about a month back. We have 2 or 3 cases in federal district court. 3 or 4 cases in Superior Court, several in Holyoke District Court, a couple in the appeals court,” she said.
The law department’s requested budget is about $560,000.
Other departments in the meeting and their respective requested budgets were:
- Board of Health: $933,000
- Emergency Management: $70,000
- Council on Aging: $577,000
- Purchasing: $87,000
- Fire Department: $12M
- War Memorial: $139,000
- Personnel: $325,000
- Holyoke Public Schools:$102M (state and city funds combined)
Wistariahurst Museum & Gardens Director Megan Selis. “We try to be really inventive. We do a lot of our events with donation funding. We also opened up a new room this year that’s been closed since the 1970s. One of our rooms had severe water damage, and I did not have funds to fix it, but, I’ve always [pointed to] the tenement room example to showcase the working class history here in Holyoke.”
Director Megan Selis said:
“Some of the updates we’ve done this year with grant funding: we got Wi-Fi in the building this year thanks to the Community Foundation of (Western Massachusetts). Thanks to the CPA and Preservation Mass., we’ve gotten funding and of course, the mayor and the Community Development Office is working really hard to get that retaining wall hopefully restored.”
Holyoke is one of few communities in the commonwealth’s 351 cities and towns that has its own museum with landscaped gardens, the city’s archives records, galleries, and events. Its requested budget is just under $300,000. Mayor Joshua García cut to $275,000. The gardens are open every day until sunset for relaxation and picnics.
Lyn Horan, vice chair of the Commission on Disabilities, informed the council that the commission seeks to be included in the budget.
“For many years Holyoke since the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and we formed a municipal commission on disability per state law. We have accrued funds from the violation from the fines on violations of handicapped parking. It has generally gone into the general fund. And what we are trying to do first is to create a budget. The commission believes this is really important because, we are a very large, marginalized group.
We are out the largest marginalized group in the state of Massachusetts, according to the census as well, is in Hampden County. In Holyoke. We are also the most diverse, which should be our superpower. But sadly, we have these obstacles now because of lack of access to health care for those folks who are LGBTQ, for those folks who are people of color and, so we also are, again, one of the most diverse, types of people in our city.
And we are in need right now and maybe always have them, of course, but especially, with the upcoming cuts with the federal government, we know we will be hit especially hard.
So we’re looking to our local government for supporting us in these particular categories that I will explain to you that we’re looking at, for help. And again, these are things that have been accrued and, thanks to our enforcement officers, we’ve actually accrued quite a fair amount of money considering other cities doing the same thing for a budget.” Lyn Horan, Chair, Commission on Disabilities
Lyn Horan, Commission on Disabilities
The requested budget for the commission is $36,000.
On the agenda for the next budget hearing on May 28 at 6 p.m. in City Council Chambers will be:
- Mayor
- Tax Collector
- Assessor
- Treasurer
- Auditor
The City Council has the authority to reduce budgets or agree with the mayor’s requests.
Aside from the the first of three budget hearings, the City Council met for a second time this week for its regular meeting. One of the items regarded a report from City Councilor Jenny Rivera, chair of the Public Safety Committee.
At its April 22 meeting, the committee heard from Police Chief Brian Keenan on the department’s progress in different areas, including accepting a suggestion by the City Councilors to swear-in only police officers who have graduated from the academy. Previous police chiefs would swear-in cadets and have city taxpayers take on financial responsibilities for them even if they did not graduate.
Said Councilor Kevin Jourdain:
“Just wanted to compliment the chair for an excellent meeting. I really enjoyed that. And it was very productive. And thank the chief for coming in. I did want to just mention on item seven (on the agenda). This is a classic example of where the city council did its research, came up with a good suggestion to the chief, relative to about the swearing in of officers after they actually complete the academy and they’re ready to join the force as opposed to before, and taking on that liability for many people who just don’t make it through. They took our suggestion, and they made the policy change. And I just wanted to again compliment Brian, our new police chief, because quite frankly, that should have happened years ago. And because of his leadership, he’s open to these type of new ideas and better ways of doing things. And he’s in he’s acting on those things.”
The agenda and documents for the City Council meeting can be viewed here.
The complete meeting can be viewed here.
Finally, the Ordinance Committee met this week as well. The meeting can be viewed here.
