The Penultimate Budget Meeting (3)

(3rd in a series of posts on the Budget)

Here’s the proposed 2019 budget

Nicole Radzievich, “What Bethlehem taxpayers can expect from next year’s budget?” Morning Call, December 10, 2018.

Council President Waldron quipped about the full house at Town Hall on the 2 W. Market meetings compared to the 1 spectator at a $78m budget hearing.

So it goes. (Who recognizes that Kurt Vonnegut is still on Gadfly’s mind?)

There were five scheduled meetings of the Administration and City Council to discuss the 2019 budget.  One was snowed out. The last meeting was last night, and the sequence is well reported on in the above article by Nicole. Penultimate tinkering was done last night. The final, official budget will be voted on next Council meeting December 18. Some changes could occur before the vote. Here are some bullet points Gadfly plucked from Nicole’s article

• $78m budget
• 3.8% increase
• + $34 for the average homeowner
• a non-emergency call center will replace 911 service taken over by the county
• city work force is down but pension payments rising
• more road work will be done than in previous years
• makeover at Memorial Pool
• improvements to the Rose Garden
• possible contribution to a feasibility study for a pedestrian bridge
• uncertain amount but a one-time large tax income from Casino sale on the horizon
• new fiscal plans for the Golf Course

Ho, hum, some people would say. But Gadfly found his very first experience with budget hearings very interesting. Here are a couple quick notes:

• the interchanges were not only civil, but light and even humorous
• no hassles like we hear about, for instance, in Allentown
• it was good to hear and “recognize” department heads, people before mainly faceless
• you can learn a lot when ideas are or have to be linked with money
• neat seeing resident-based requests got into the budget

Gadfly’s antennae (he thinks he has more than one) were especially attuned to this last point. CM Reynolds introduced a request for Rose Garden money. CM Callahan pushed to increase it and to add funds for a pedestrian bridge feasibility study (funds for that seem to be imminently possible from the county and another granting agency as well). Rose Garden money was proposed out of the city budget, and additional money for the Rose Garden plus money for the bridge study were put on the list for consideration when that Casino tax income is definite. All of Council, as far as Gadfly could tell, were supportive of both the Rose Garden improvements and moving forward on study of the pedestrian bridge.

But what do the budget hearings look like? How does the process work?

Gadfly videographer Owen Gallagher took some video. We don’t have video editing software, so the following three clips are not focused on key moments or highlights but simply present the routine linear process (which had many twists and turns) monitored by President Waldron on the Rose Garden insertion into the budget. You can see CM Reynolds introduce the idea, then CM Callahan move to augment the idea. During the process you can see the mayor, especially Public Works head Mike Alkhal, and other Council members interact.

It would take NFL films to make this visually “exciting,” but exciting things are happening nonetheless.

Proponents of the Rose Garden should get a thrill. Looks like $$$$ flowing your way.

Pedestrian bridge is also on the radar.

Here’s your local government operating in perhaps the most important thing they do.

Budget Hearing 12=4=-18 Rose Garden 1
Budget Hearing 12=4=-18 Rose Garden 2
Budget Hearing 12=4=-18 Rose Garden 3

As Gadfly wrote in post #1, there is a feeling among Council that the City is doing a good budget job (A+ credit rating), and that was reflected in final comments last night. Shown here is CM Reynolds’s offering of appreciation to the City, which were followed by equally gracious remarks by President Waldron that unfortunately we didn’t film.