On tonight’s City Council agenda is an innocuous-looking item under the “Mayor’s Report” titled “Zero-based budgeting.”  But it might just prove to be the key to whether our community thrives and prospers in coming years, or whether it staggers along under more deficit budgets, decreasing services and, ultimately, much higher taxes.

For as long as we can remember the City of Park Ridge – and our other local governmental bodies as well – have formulated their budgets based on some percentage of increase (or, theoretically, decrease) over the previous year’s budget.  Which means that rarely, if ever, has anybody looked with a keen eye and a sharp knife at the way things are operating before automatically tacking on a fractional request for more funds. 

“Zero-based budgeting” (“ZBB”) is different.  It begins with the assumption that nothing will be spent on each of the functions for which a particular department is responsible.  Rather than simply using what that department’s manager is already spending as the baseline for additional spending, ZBB requires each manager to review his/her department’s budget and perform a cost-benefit analysis of each task assigned to that department, including performance measures and alternatives.

The bottom line: each manager is required to justify every dollar of what he/she is requesting, no matter for how many years something or other has been done without question.

With years of deficit budgets having jeopardized the City’s financial well-being and the services to which we have grown accustomed, and with no let-up in sight, we think ZBB is an idea whose time has definitely come.   And Mayor Dave Schmidt appears to share that opinion, as we understand that the ZBB agenda item is there at his insistence.

While we strongly support the concept of ZBB, our research indicates that it is not practical for every department every year, due to its labor-intensive nature and the cost.  But it can be used effectively on a rotating basis so that no department does ZBB more than once every X number of years to enforce budgetary restraint and reduce the “entitlement” mentality that promotes inefficiency and spending.

Unfortunately, just because the mayor is proposing it doesn’t mean ZBB is going to be adopted. 

As we’ve repeatedly seen over recent years, and more often since former Mayor Howard Frimark led the referendum to cut the City Council in half and then install a majority of his Alderpuppets in the 7 chairs remaining, we’ve got a Council that seems incapable of controlling spending – as shown by how it increased spending last year even as it was staring at a $2 million budget deficit. 

And if that’s not crazy enough, try this one on for size: After the Council, at the insistence of Ald. Frank “RINO” (Republican In Name Only) Wsol, rejected the fiscally-responsible pass-through of increased water costs to water users, the City is now looking at an approximately $900,000 operating deficit in the water fund this year, even as the City increasingly relies on that water fund to help cover other expense obligations, like payroll.

We also can’t expect support for ZBB from City Staff, because government bureaucrats are no fans figuring out what to cut and what to fund in what amounts.  That’s hard work…and it carries the risk of accountability for those decisions if they turn out to be wrong.  Which is why we wonder whether the prospect of ZBB may be responsible for City Finance Director Diane Lembesis reportedly exiting for Gurnee.

ZBB will clearly be a test of Schmidt’s leadership and an indication of whether the City Council and/or City Staff care one whit about Park Ridge’s long-term fiscal health and its viability as an upscale residential community.  

We’re keeping our fingers crossed.