GOV, Broadview overspending [BV]
Broadview is overspending. Nine months into the fiscal year, the village is in the red $1.7 million. See Suburban Life (Debrah Bonn).
Finance Director Les Swintek and Village President Henry Vicenik are using the deficit to push home rule.
Remember, Broadview had trouble being audited because it lost its budget. It wasn't just ignoring the budget as a management tool, it couldn't find the budget to present to an outside auditor.
If Broadview has to cut stuff it should start cutting. It's not responsible to create a huge deficit and then say home rule is the only option.
Finance Director Les Swintek and Village President Henry Vicenik are using the deficit to push home rule.
"If we don't get home rule, these budgets are meaningless. They all have to be redone because the staffing levels have to be altered," he said....
Mayor Henry Vicenik said without home rule to increase revenues, layoffs would be likely.
"The residents are starting to accuse me that I am threatening them with layoffs if we do not get home rule, and it's not a threat. It's a reality," Vicenik said.
Remember, Broadview had trouble being audited because it lost its budget. It wasn't just ignoring the budget as a management tool, it couldn't find the budget to present to an outside auditor.
If Broadview has to cut stuff it should start cutting. It's not responsible to create a huge deficit and then say home rule is the only option.
posted by Carl Nyberg at
11:49 AM
1 Comments:
Hey W & W - don't give Henry any ideas. He may already have a bag packed in his trunk.
They have been force-balancing the budgets for years. In other words, they bumped up what they projected for revenue to cover the expenses. The problem is they forgot to work to increase the revenue to the levels the bumped them to.
It's not like they didn't have the options of increasing revenue. At any point along the way they could have come to the voters and asked to increase property taxes beyond the tax caps. Of course then they would have to have admitted that they were in trouble. Not the image they felt they needed to run for re-election in April 2005 (Mayor, Clerk and 3 Trustees).
In January 2006 I begged them to include a referendum question on the March 21st ballot to increase sales tax, just in case they lost their bid for Home Rule. They said it wasn't a good strategy. Henry is quoted in the Suburban Life as saying "giving voters a choice of home rule and/or a higher sales tax would hurt the chances of home rule passing.
Some residents say, 'I'm not going to vote for two tax increases, home rule or the half percent,' so you get neither one."
That gamble cost the Village of Broadview over $800,000 in lost revenue because the issue can't be voted on until November 2006 and the increase in place until 2007.
Forest Park may have been Henry's role model. Now its one of ours.
By
Judy Brown-Marino, at 2:14 PM, April 07, 2006
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