By David Cruz
Correspondent
As the city council prepared to consider major budget amendments on the day before their state-mandate deadline, it looked like there might be more nays than yeas, but it is perhaps a measure of just how rich Mayor Ras Baraka is in political capital that his mere presence at a council meeting turned skeptics into enthusiastic supporters.
“The clerks will call us on anything else that is important, but this is an important matter, and I feel that it’s just a disservice to this body that we get this today,” complained Councilman Luis Quintana.
Councilman John Sharpe James admonished his colleagues that any delays could be costly. “I believe we have to adopt this today, or reject it,” he warned. “If we do reject it, we run the risk of losing the $10 million the state has provided, or promised to provide in assistance, so we need to keep that in mind.”
As the council went into closed session, it seemed possible that the mayor’s amended budget might not have the votes, which would have been a political blow for Baraka — not to mention the loss of state aid. But as spectators waited outside the council chambers, a call went out to the mayor’s office. Within minutes of his arrival, the closed session was over and a vote was taken. The vote was unanimous in favor.
Baraka actually inherited this budget, which was originally $90 million out of balance, but over the last several months, the city, with help from some local corporate finance experts, was able to trim almost every department and get the deficit down to $30 million.
“It was a very hard task to do but the [alternatives] are even harder to do, so to tell departments you don’t have this money, you don’t have that money. We have to become more efficient around here in terms of what we spend, our contracts. We have to use grant money when we can, instead of our own money,” he explained. “We have to become more creative and disciplined at spending money, throughout the end of this year and probably next year and the year after that.”
In addition to anticipating $10 million in state aid — down from the original $30 million requested — the city will be allowed to count as income funds from unemployment insurance and other items, which they usually have to keep in reserve every year. But most significantly, the city will be allowed to stretch its debt payments over a 10-year period, which beats having to pay it now.
“That is what actually triggered oversight,” Baraka noted, “not the fact that we borrowed the $10 million or that we got $10 million, but the minute we amortized the $30 million debt is what triggered state oversight.”
So what looked like a potential political blow to the mayor, turned out to be a victory. And all he had to do, it seems, was show up to the meeting.
This budget does contain a tax increase of roughly $300 per household, a reality which may put to the test what has so far been a honeymoon for Mayor Baraka.