By Ted Schnell • BocaJump
Elgin’s Budget and Financial Planning Task Force is over the hump after concluding on Tuesday, Aug. 30, the fourth of seven meetings to find out what which city services residents consider most crucial as the city enters budget deliberations for 2012.
The task force is trying to gauge residents’ views on city services at a time when the Elgin City Council is facing a $4.5 million structural budget deficit. The task force was created to listen to residents, assess the city’s overall financial picture, and make policy recommendations for cuts and new revenues for 2012 and the city’s 2012-16 financial plan.
Now past the halfway point in terms of its scheduled meetings, Task Force Chairman Carl Missele exudes optimism about the process and confidence that the panel will meet its objective, although he is not ruling out the possibility of adding more meetings to the schedule if the task force feels it is necessary.
“We’re representing the Elgin community,” he said of the panel’s work. “So we’re getting community input.”
The City Council, he said, wants guidance from members of the community about their priorities, “where they are likely to accept pain from cuts,” Missele said.
He is excited, and humbled, to be a part of the process.
The task force, he said, represents a broad segment touching nearly every Elgin demographic you can imagine: Economic, social, ethnic, geographic, college-educated, blue-collar workers. Add the community’s involvement in the meetings, and the depth and breadth of involvement goes even deeper.
“It’s exceptional,” he said. “We’re engaging a demographic that’s never been involved before.
“This is such a great mix — a great cross-section of abilities and demographics,” he said.
Further, Missele said, the whole process represents a level of transparency seldom seen in government: Anyone can sit in on the task force meetings, any one can contribute.
Missele said he was shocked when Mayor David Kaptain asked him to lead the panel. The two are well-acquainted — Missele ran two of Kaptain’s City Council election campaigns, as well as his campaign for mayor this year. Even so, Missele said, there are people on the task force with greater expertise in terms of large budgets.
But to his credit, Missele has experience the city touted in announcing his selection to lead the task force. He is president of the Elgin Community Network and the Tyler Creek Watershed Coalition. An Elgin resident for more than 60 years, he’s also been active in the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. The city, in announcing his selection, also said he brings with him to the table expertise in community engagement, education and meeting facilitation.
Still in Phase I of three phases
The task force is in the first of three phases of work — getting an overview of the city’s operations and listening to residents discuss their priorities on city services. In the next phase, he said, the city staff will present its needs, after which the task force must summarize its work, which will be presented to the City Council.
“We’ve been given one hell of a lot of information,” Missele said Thursday. “Just to give you an example, we received a complete listing of city vehicles, when they were purchased, their mileage and maintenance. …”
All told, he said, those vehicles represent $12.5 million worth of equipment that needs to be replaced over the coming years — and that’s just one small part of the city’s overall operations.
The task force also has reviewed the city’s riverboat fund and how moneys are used from it. On Tuesday night, he said, the task force broke into three smaller groups, each one to review the riverboat fund and consider what could be eliminated, what should not.
“Each group looked at the same list of riverboat expenditures, each group made recommendations,” he said. “We gave all three lists to (Assistant City Manager) Rick Kozal to combine and review for priorities … cuts and modifications.”
Missele said the task force will not meet this Tuesday, which will give Kozal and city staff the time they need to sort through the information.
“Some things seemed like no-brainers to me,” Missele said. “Other things you just don’t want to mess with.”
That is because some issues are very difficult to assess, he continued, pointing to social service agencies that receive riverboat funding as an example. No one doubts the work done by these agencies is good for the community.
But “part of the information we won’t get and probably can’t get,” he said. For example, gauging the effectiveness of the dollars spent on social services is virtually impossible, because there are no tools to measure the quality or the value of those services to the community.
Similarly, some parts of city operations are difficult to assess, he said, pointing to the parks fund as an example. “How much is quality of life worth?” he asked.
Still much work ahead
Missele said the task force’s work is far from over. During Phase II of its meetings, the city staff will review its needs before the task force compiles its recommendations, which according to its schedule, should happen Sept. 27.
“It’s taking a hell of a lot more time than I thought it would,” he said, lamenting that the task force got off to a “real slow start.”
Another thing to take into consideration is that some task force members are eager for more information. Some, he said, are ready to roll up their shirt sleeves and start going through the budget — it’s part of what they do professionally.
Others, however, want to be sure they understand things.
“There are some on the task force who do not want to embarrass themselves by asking questions,” Missele said. “Nobody wants to look bad by asking (what someone else might think is) a stupid question.”
That can add to the time the panel needs to do the job well. “We might have to stretch it out two or three meetings, tentatively,” he said.
Regardless, he said, the task force will conclude its work in time for the City Council’s own deliberations.
“We will make recommendations,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”
