Wednesday, March 14, 2012

City Budgets

Prosbus, frequent poster and irritant on Hoboken Patch, had this to say recently:

my point is that the budget process is not complete largely because of Dawn and her administration's procrastination and inability to deliver the document in a timely fashion. This is nothing to blame Councilperson's Russo, Mason, Castellano and Occhipinti for and in fact something Dawn needs to be accountable and responsible for.  

Is the Zimmer administration moving the budget process in a timely fashion? Let's compare to prior years.

Dark blue bars indicate the number of days into the budget year before the budget is first introduced (think of introduction as a draft version or a first reading) and silver-blue bars indicate days before the final budget is adopted.

The 2011 budget was the first full year's budget wholly owned by the new administration. The city's 2012 budget has been introduced but not yet adopted (as of March 14, the red line on the chart). Years 2000-01 were former Mayor Russo's budgets. Years 2002-08 belonged to Mayor Roberts. Years 2009-10 were during the reign of the state fiscal monitor, Judy Tripodi.

 Conclusion?  I think the chart speaks for itself.

Click image to enlarge.