Nearly three months after Prichard’s fiscal year began, city leaders were still searching for common ground on a spending plan, with a vote finally expected at a City Council meeting scheduled for Thursday evening.
The council had been reworking the roughly $11.4 million budget for the 2015 fiscal year since late summer, even as the year officially started in October. In the meantime, city departments continued operating under the previous year’s $10.6 million plan. Council President Ossia Edwards said Finance Committee Chairman George McCall first invited members to submit proposed changes back in August, but repeated new requests kept stalling progress.
“Every meeting has been some new change from some council member,” Edwards said, adding that members had also raised budget issues outside of the finance committee’s formal sessions rather than hashing out compromises at the table.
One recurring flashpoint was the city’s High Pointe golf course. Council members Severia Campbell-Morris and Lorenzo Martin questioned why the course was budgeted to cost roughly $148,700 while bringing in only about $48,600. Finance Director Cyndy Norwood explained that the line items had been split to separate employee salaries from overhead, and warned that cutting the course’s funding further would likely force layoffs.
Members also pressed for more money to spend on projects in their individual districts. A sharper dispute broke out between Edwards and Campbell-Morris over the newest councilwoman’s request that a certified public accountant review the budget before any vote. Campbell-Morris, who took office in October, argued that the use of federal and local tax dollars demanded an independent look.
“The buck stops right here,” she said. “I have a responsibility to be accountable.”
Edwards countered that a CPA would examine the budget anyway as part of the city’s standard annual audit, and that councilors could adjust the plan as issues surfaced. Her larger worry, she said, was that the city was still spending against outdated line items, making it impossible to track current expenses until a new budget was adopted.
“We are trying to get this budget passed so we can be accountable, we can track it,” Edwards said.
Both women agreed the delay rested squarely with the council, but they found little else to agree on. Councilman Lorenzo Martin appealed for a more civil tone among his colleagues, saying members needed to be “better colleagues than we are being” and to stop airing their differences so publicly.
With the meeting set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday, the council appeared poised to bring months of contentious negotiation to a close, though not without lingering disagreement over how the small Mobile County city should manage its money.