Another Meeting Another Mistake
Down to the wire again on the budget with no certainty on anything about the meeting at 5:00 tonight.
Lots of interesting things discussed at last nights regular meeting. I'll cover that later. For now, I want to document one more mistake by the city on the budget process.
Here is the law about Public Hearings for the Budget:
Sec. 102.007. ADOPTION OF BUDGET. (a) At the conclusion of the public hearing, the governing body of the municipality shall
take action on the proposed budget. (b) The governing body may make any changes in the budget that it considers warranted by the law or by the best interest of the municipal taxpayers.
I specifically asked the council to make motions and vote up or down on the various citizen petitions presented in the public hearing. They refused with backing of the city administrator claiming that no action can be taken. They don't know what they are doing! State law specifically tells them that they must take action at the end of the hearing. They took no action. The Comptrollers budget manual states that one valid action is to make a motion and vote to delay the vote to another day. They did not. The public hearing was not in compliance with the law.
Lots of interesting things discussed at last nights regular meeting. I'll cover that later. For now, I want to document one more mistake by the city on the budget process.
Here is the law about Public Hearings for the Budget:
Sec. 102.007. ADOPTION OF BUDGET. (a) At the conclusion of the public hearing, the governing body of the municipality shall
take action on the proposed budget. (b) The governing body may make any changes in the budget that it considers warranted by the law or by the best interest of the municipal taxpayers.
I specifically asked the council to make motions and vote up or down on the various citizen petitions presented in the public hearing. They refused with backing of the city administrator claiming that no action can be taken. They don't know what they are doing! State law specifically tells them that they must take action at the end of the hearing. They took no action. The Comptrollers budget manual states that one valid action is to make a motion and vote to delay the vote to another day. They did not. The public hearing was not in compliance with the law.
posted by RobC at 10:58 AM
3 Comments:
Sounds like the City is not going to make the deadline... Give that man another $15,000!!!! Jeesh...
If they did not follow the law on the budget's public hearing, does it even count as a public hearing? If it does not count, they have not fulfilled the letter of the law and they need to reschedule another public hearing and will be unable to vote tonight... I know this is a technicality, but when are these people going to learn to read? These elected officials refuse to read the law; they refuse to read the easy-to-read budget manual published by the comptroller. This is not the wild west. This is a legal entity in the State of Texas in the United States of America. We are not playing cowboys. Turn off the TV and get to work.
What I have read, when you have the public hearing and there are citizens' comments that require changes to the budget, the city attorney is supposed to "move" the meeting until the next day so the suggested changes can be incorporated into the budget for approval. As I understand it, several requests to be placed in the budget were made last night. Now we know the city attorney does not go by the letter of the law, but he could obfuscate into another meeting for tonight, ostensibly to incorporate citizens' changes. Everybody watch and see if those changes have been incorporated into the budget. Otherwise the "public hearing" wasn't a hearing after all. But what has been pointed out repeatedly and very well by Leo last night, and Mary Williams agreed, Flo has shut everybody out of the budget process, thus hamstringing the city council into what he hoped would be submission. Lanman, with his "tranparent budget" and "to the nickel" explanations remarks of last night about this bogus budget does not have a clue. And if you all really think he spent the summer reading law applying to solid waste landfills, you are WRONG. He spent the summer doing what he does best, doing exactly what he wants to when he wants to at the expense of the taxpayers. And he knows zip about solid land fill rules.
And Rob is entirely right, the budget and tax rate are supposed to be approved at the end of their last public hearings.
Los dos anons above are on the mark. I wonder if Monte Akers REALLY knows what this city administration has been up to. He only hears or reads what Flo and Lanman feed to him.
Post a Comment
<< Home