O’Grady expected to veto portion of budget
By Jeff Gallatin
North Olmsted
Published March 22, 2006

A disagreement between Mayor Thomas O’Grady and City Council on portions of the 2006 fiscal year budget may lead to the mayor’s first veto. O’Grady says he will likely reject council’s insertion to the budget of an additional correctional officer for the police department.

In citing his displeasure with several of council’s budget moves while they were discussed in the finance committee hearings, O’Grady said he would exercise the power given him by the city charter to veto a portion of the budget instead of the entire document. O’Grady said council made the moves without discussing them with him. Council leaders in turn said they were trying to address  potential problems by funding an additional correctional officer and reducing proposed salaries for an administrative assistant sought by O’Grady, a new part-time assistant law director and part of a raise for North Olmsted’s information technology supervisor. Council also cut funds set aside for hiring outside legal council by the city and some police overtime as well.

A finance committee meeting was set to take place last night prior to the regular council session during which was the budget could be discussed again.

O’Grady said council should have talked to him about the changes.

“It’s inconceivable to me that out of a $60 million overall budget and a $20 million-plus general fund budget, council specifically targets areas which this administration said were major priorities for funding,” O’Grady said. “To just add a correctional officer which the administration did not seek and to cut those other areas just is not responsible at all on the part of council. So I will exercise the powers available to me in the charter to veto the correctional officer being placed in the budget.

“Council knew I was going to be out of town (O’Grady was attending a National League of Cities meeting in Washington, D.C., March 13 and 14) because I asked them to hold the meeting when I got back or to call me if they needed to discuss an issue,” O’Grady said. “No one called me and no one said anything to me about these issues when we were discussing the budget at earlier sessions.”

Council Finance Committee Chairman Ron Tallon said council had discussed their concerns about portions of the budget when O’Grady was present.

“He knows we had concerns about the correctional officer issue for the city, and that we wanted to do something about it,” Tallon said. “We were down an officer and we felt adding one could take away a good deal of the potential for problems in the jail.”

Tallon also said that cutting the different areas is council’s way of dealing with a tight financial situation.

“We’re trying to find ways of dealing with all the potential issues,” Tallon said. “The mayor has said we’ve got to do more with less. That has to start at the top of the city and not the bottom. I would hope that is not just for the hourly workers.”

Referring to a potential veto, Tallon said that’s the mayor’s prerogative.

O’Grady would have 10 days from the day the legislation is passed to veto a measure. If he does veto the measure, it would take a 5-2 vote by council to override it.

Councilman-at-large Paul Miller said council tried to be fair.

“We didn’t cut positions, we tried to fund them at reasonable rates while trying to provide a good amount of services for all of the city,” Miller said. “Just because we do something different from the mayor doesn’t mean we’re trying to undercut him.”

O’Grady said he tried to fund all the financial areas cut at reasonable rates.

“We’re not looking at top-of-the-line salaries here; I tried to put them all in the middle ranges,” O’Grady said. “When you look at our IT (information technology) supervisor, we had one supervisor three years ago at a much higher rate near $90,000 and another worker at a lower rate. If we don’t offer a fair wage to this person, we will lose him and then have to spend $8,000 to $10,000 to hire and train another person. That’s not a good move for the city.”

During discussion of the IT salary, council mulled cutting the proposed salary of about $45,000 down to $35,000. However, council members Paul Barker and Nicole Dailey-Jones suggested a compromise of  $40,000 with Dailey-Jones also suggesting using continuing education incentives as a means of reaching higher salaries. Council accepted the compromise figure.

Barker, a businessman, said compromise seemed the best way of getting a raise for the position.

“Giving the position a raise of  $10,000 in one year just wasn’t going to happen with council,” Barker said. “It would be hard to explain in this kind of tight budget and even to other employees. We tried to find something fair.”

Referring to the correctional officer, council members said the position would serve more than one purpose.

“It helps deal with a shortage in correctional officers in the jail, and it also cuts the need for overtime in  the budget,” said Larry Orlowski, chairman of the safety committee. “We won’t have to work the others COs extra as much and we won’t have to bring police officers in to do that work,” Orlowski said. “I’m voting for the budget as it will be presented.”

O’Grady said extra manpower won’t solve all the overtime problems in the police department.

“If any member of council believes that the solution to high salaries and overtime in our safety forces is increased manning, then they are incredible misdirected,” O’Grady said.

O’Grady said underfunding the administrative assistant position in his office is the same as not approving the position. He noted that the last mayoral administrative assistant three years ago made $45,000, the same salary O’Grady proposed for this year.

“Cutting the salary to $40,000 will not allow for the support that is needed by the office of mayor,” O’Grady said.

However, council members said the $40,000 salary should be adequate to find someone. Miller questioned the need for hiring an administrative assistant at this time but went along with the reduced salary.

“We have much higher priorities and needs in this city right now,” Miller said.