Birmingham City Council delays vote on city's FY 2018 budget
A divided Birmingham City Council -- at their regular meeting for Tuesday, Nov. 14 -- voted 5-4 to delay consideration of the approximately $428 million city budget for fiscal year 2018 submitted by outgoing Mayor William Bell.
The stated purpose of the delay was to give incoming mayor Randall Woodfin and the council -- especially three newly elected members -- more time to study it.
Members passed a motion by Councilor Lashunda Scales to refer the budget back to the council’s committee of the whole and to have Council President Valerie Abbott pick a date in December for a special called meeting.
Voting in favor of the motion were Scales and councilors Steven Hoyt, Sheila Tyson, Hunter Williams and Darrell O’Quinn.
Voting against the delay were Abbott, Council President Pro Tem Jay Roberson, and councilors John Hilliard and William Parker.
Williams, O'Quinn and Hilliard were just sworn in on Oct. 24.
During a lengthy, often contentious debate, Scales and Hoyt argued that the council, as well as incoming mayor Randall Woodfin, needed more time to properly study the budget.
Abbott was the loudest voice in favor of passing the budget as submitted by the administration, arguing that the document had been discussed extensively over the last five months.
“I am ready to vote on this, even though I don't agree with some of the things in here,” she said.
She said that the council needed to pass a budget so the city could get on with its business, including giving pay raises to municipal employees.
Abbott, who has been on the council for 16 years, said, "I have never been on a council that has held up a budget for this long.”
Scales countered that the council had made several fruitless attempts to schedule a meeting with the mayor to work out a final version of the budget.
It was a surprise to some members that the item was included on the council's agenda by the city's finance department.
The council voted two weeks ago, after a motion by Hoyt to delay consideration of the budget until the Nov. 29 meeting of the committee of the whole.
“It’s not right to the citizens and it’s not right to the council to have this before us,” Hoyt said.
O’Quinn agreed and also cited that recent vote to consider the budget more fully in November. “I don’t know what has changed,” he said.
“To me, you have not heard from the entire council regarding the budget, and you are about to vote on a budget we don’t understand,” Hoyt said.
Scales questioned what she called a sudden “sense of urgency” to pass a budget when it should have been passed in July.
Bell submitted his original budget, the largest in the city’s history, in May.
The mayor and council are expected to finalize a budget each year by July 1. The council passed a city budget for fiscal year 2017 in August 2016.