Aurora to vote on budget Tuesday

When Aurora reached concession agreements with two unions last week, the city came one step closer to filling an $18 million budget deficit and passing a balanced budget while moving into the new year.

The next step comes Tuesday night, when aldermen are expected to vote on the city's proposed $366.6 million 2011 budget. That spending plan, which assumes four other unions also will make concessions, is balanced, officials said.

Aldermen on the city council's finance committee have reviewed the budget at four public meetings since receiving the more than 1,000-page document the week of Nov. 29. Tuesday will be the first public discussion involving the entire city council, but some aldermen say the discussion is beginning too late.

“It's unfortunate that the full council does not have the ability to thoroughly examine and discuss the budget,” Alderman Stephanie Kifowit said.

An ordinance requires Aurora's budget to be finished and presented to aldermen by Oct. 15, but there are no penalties for finishing it later. Alderman Rick Lawrence said the council should not rush to agree on the spending plan before Jan. 1, the beginning of Aurora's 2011 fiscal year.

“I don't think you can do it fast. I think it'll take a good year,” Lawrence said. “You have to zero-baseline the budget and start over. The city has become the basement that nobody has ever cleaned out. And at one point, you've got to stop, and you've got to get it cleaned out.”

Lawrence said concession agreements, like ones the city reached with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3298 and the Aurora Supervisors Association last week, don't solve the root of the city's financial issues.

“The furlough days and all those things, all that is a Band-Aid to get you through one year. It does not solve the structural problems,” Lawrence said.

The 174 employees in AFSCME Local 3298 agreed to the equivalent of 12 furlough days in 2011, and the 18 ASA employees also agreed to unpaid time off in exchange for no layoffs next year, according to a city news release.

“It's hard to imagine having more people laid off and what that would end up doing to our work,” said Krista Heinke, AFSCME Local 3298 president and an accountant for the city.

Discussions are ongoing between the city and the electrical workers union, AFSCME Local 1514 and two firefighters unions.

Police unions have refused to give concessions, so the city compensated by announcing layoffs of eight police officers, Chief Management Officer Carie Anne Ergo said at a finance committee meeting.

Kifowit and other aldermen spoke out against police layoffs, and Kifowit sent Mayor Tom Weisner and Finance Director Brian Caputo a list of other budget cuts that could be made instead.

“My philosophy is I cannot criticize without offering a solution,” Kifowit said. “My whole motivation is if we're going to lay off people, and if we're especially going to lay off police officers, we need to make sure that all avenues available for cuts are made to justify that.”

The finance committee agreed with some of Kifowit's ideas, choosing to make tenants of the Fred Rogers Community Center pay their own phone bills and decrease the funds aldermen get for planting trees in their wards.

Kifowit said she plans to bring up other ideas Tuesday, such as saving $94,000 by not printing the city's quarterly newsletter for a year.

“I think there needs to be more discussion on the budget overall with the full council,” Kifowit said.