We would encourage any Chattanooga City Council members who want to get more involved in the city’s budget process to do so – to a point.
Council members made noises about wanting more of a say in the process during Tuesday’s strategic planning meeting, and we think that’s healthy. But it may come down to a question of how far they want to get into the weeds.
Traditionally, the mayor’s staff presents the city’s budget to the council in early May, and, after department budget presentations, it’s voted up or down in late June. Oh, questions are asked, but it’s not as if the administration is sent back to an anteroom and asked to come back with something else.
Council members were angling to see if they had specific power like a line-item veto, where they could select any expenditure – say a mythical $500,000 for continuing education for sign inspectors – and vote it out with five of their nine votes.
“[W]e need to know if we can amend it or vote on part of it while not approving every item in the whole thing,” Councilman Darrin Ledford said. “It’s like a Christmas present we know that it is coming, but we have to wait and hope we’re going to like it.”