OCEAN CITY – After cutting and reviewing individual budgets, Ocean City’s departments have been coming before the Mayor and Council this week to present their respective fiscal year 2014 (FY14) spending plans.
Budget hearings for the FY14 proposed budget began last Thursday and were scheduled through Wednesday of this week with the final budget wrap up today.
At the conclusion of this week’s Mayor and City Council legislative session, Councilman Joe Mitrecic stressed the amount of work that goes into the budget process.
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They have no clue what they are doing because none of them know what Obamacare is going to cost. I will bet that there will be a mess of employees in Ocean City that will be working 29 hours a week in 2014. Obamcare will force people to get 2 part time jobs so the unemployment numbers will look good on paper.
ReplyDeleteHere's the real story going on in OC-Editorial in OC Today---
ReplyDeleteAn incredible thing happened Monday night at City Hall: the City Council voted affirmatively on a major spending issue without knowing what it was agreeing to spend.
Maybe it is not that incredible after all, but that is a fair summary of what happened, as a council majority approved a return to the old pension program for the local FOP without any real idea of the cost to Ocean City taxpayers.
That is the essence of what City Manager David Recor said Tuesday, when he told the mayor and council that this paper’s state Public Information Act request for the pension ordinance’s financial data — specifically the actuarial study that details the pension’s long-term expenses — would be delayed until the council itself has had a chance to see it.
What? An overwhelming council majority agreed to a significant financial commitment on its first reading without knowing what its financial impact might be? Simple logic dictates that it is either that or the mayor and council members are less concerned with the fiscal aspects of a deal struck with the FOP months ago than they are just getting it done.
Regardless, not making this vital data available to the public until the pension ordinance’s second reading is like giving someone a ticket for a boat that has already sailed.
Assuming they do exist, the financial studies pertaining to this pension switch might show, as the ordinance summary declares, that there is no substantial difference in cost – or taxpayer liability –between the pension program currently in place and the one the council is about to approve. But without that information, neither the public nor some council members have any way of knowing that with certainty.
This is not an acceptable way to conduct the public’s business, but it is even more difficult to accept that elected officials did not have, did not want or believed they did not need that information as well.
Sounds kinda like Perlosi's "we got to pass the bill before we know what's in it" thing going on in OC. OC's got some real inteligencia on their council-LOL.
ReplyDeleteListen! The seasonal bus drivers get NO benefits. The seasonal bus drivers have not had a raise in over 4 years. The seasonal bus drivers don't belong to a union nor have they ever threatened to organize. They simply show up for work every season and do their job. The OC whiners complain when they can't sleep on watch and get their wives to protest for them. The OC whiners hornswagled the city into letting them form a union. Parking and transportation costs to visitors and residents will go up to pay unionized police and firefighters.
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