Candidates see ways to cut costs, control taxes
Mayoral hopefuls hold differing view on staff cuts
Feb. 2, 2010 | 0 comments
Residents have identified taxes and city spending as major issues in this election, and the four men vying to be Brookfield's next mayor agree.
Mayor Jeff Speaker, Alderman Steve Ponto, Waukesha County Supervisor Thomas Schellinger and former Elmbrook School Board member and former alderman David Marcello will square off in the primary election Feb. 16.
The top two vote-getters will advance to the spring election April 6.
Thomas Schellinger
Schellinger said Brookfield needs to take a step back and re-examine its programs, staffing levels and budget process.
"I just think that these next two years are going to be extraordinarily difficult, with the recession and the drop in revenue," he said.
As mayor, he said, he would craft a 2011 budget that does not increase the amount property owners pay in taxes to the city. If the Finance Committee develops budget parameters that would lead to a 1 to 2 percent increase, he said, he would want to see the differences between those two budgets - including the costs and effects of reducing some services - and present that information to aldermen and the public.
Schellinger said he would consider all options for reducing costs, including reducing staffing if needed.
"Nobody wants to cut staffing, but we have to look at the new reality to what's happening (in business and government)," he said.
All of the other candidates have talked about the benefits of consolidating services, but Schellinger said he hasn't seen any movement toward that type of intergovernmental cooperation in the last several years. The city needs to bring in elected officials from other municipalities to start discussions about what type of consolidations could work, he said.
Further, the city needs to stick with the discussions and not abandon them because officials from other municipalities disagree.
"You need somebody who will never give up on this," he said.
Steve Ponto
Ponto said the city's budget approach - the Finance Committee reviewing and altering a budget drafted by the mayor before moving it to the Common Council - has worked well in recent years.
Still, there are ways, such as not filling positions that become vacant, to cut the budget, he said.
"I think depending on the economic circumstances, there's always room to make some reductions," Ponto said, adding that, if possible, he would search for budget reductions that don't involve staff cuts.
"If (the economy) continued to deteriorate and to be bad, I think we'd have to look at that, but that is a last resort," he said.
Working with other municipalities and sharing services could be an avenue to significant expense reductions, Ponto said, citing Brookfield's participation in the Waukesha County Communications Center as a good example of a shared service saving Brookfield money. He said participation in the joint dispatch center is saving the city about $1.3 million a year.
Ponto disagrees with a proposal Marcello has made throughout the campaign: reducing the tax rate from its current 1.7 percent of assessed value to 1.5 percent of assessed value. Ponto said such a cut would mean paring millions of dollars from the city's expenditures.
"There isn't a lot of room for substantial cuts unless we do things very, very differently," Ponto said.
He did say he would try to craft a 2011 budget with no increase in tax rate.
Jeff Speaker
Speaker said the city's tax rate has dropped since 2001 - falling to $5.35 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2009 from nearly $6 per $1,000 eight years earlier - and the city usually has one of the lowest tax rates in the area.
The city's long-term financial policies, including reviewing any city job that comes open and determining whether it should continued to be staffed, have helped Brookfield gain some efficiencies, he said, but city spending is always under review.
"I think it always has to be honed and looked at," he said. "That's an ongoing process, and it will always be an ongoing process."
Still, Speaker said, Brookfield is doing better than other governments that have had to institute drastic cost-saving measures like furloughs or layoffs.
"I think we're in far better shape than most," the incumbent said.
Speaker said the city has talked to other communities, including Pewaukee and New Berlin, about potential consolidation of services. But the tricky part of that, he said, is that Brookfield has a high level of service and doesn't want to provide service to another community to the detriment of its own residents.
"The major concern that we have is that we don't subsidize somebody else," he said. "If they wanted (that level of service) that bad, they'd pay for it."
David Marcello
Marcello said he differs from other candidates because he wants to streamline city government and find efficiencies where possible.
Brookfield should take a hard look at its staffing levels, he said. The city has more than 300 full-time equivalent employees, and most of them have health insurance, benefits and other costs that fall on the city's shoulders.
"At this point, I think the cost of personnel is something that you have to look at," he said. "Before you start cutting services, you have to start looking at personnel and look at ways to reduce costs."
Marcello said he disagrees with Speaker's assertion that plummeting revenues are to blame for tight budgets in the city.
"The problem is cost. It's always on the cost," he said. "When you have revenue shortfalls, you have to make adjustments on the cost side."
Marcello also said he wants to shift the city's tax rate back down toward 1.5 percent of assessed value, rather than the 1.7 percent it's at now. He said the move won't be easy and won't be embraced by everybody, but it's something that needs to be done.
"Residents have had enough with taxes," he said.
Like the others, Marcello said he is open to looking at cooperative agreements with other municipalities, including consolidation or privatization of some services.
FYI
WHAT: mayoral forum sponsored by the East Central Branch of the Waukesha County Republican Party
WHEN: 7 p.m. Feb. 4
WHERE: City Hall, 2000 N. Calhoun Road
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