Tonight the Park Ridge City Council is supposed to adopt a budget for FY 2012-13, which begins on May 1.

For those of you who just started paying attention to the City’s budgets, you might find the process a bit arcane and confusing.  But don’t feel bad about that.  Many/most of our elected officials over the past decade (or two?) appear not to have understood it, either, which is why the City’s finances are in an iron lung and looking to get worse as the $39.8 million Uptown TIF debt begins to suck even more money out of the General Fund, beginning in 2013-14.

Take Ald. Rich DiPietro (2nd), for example.  He has been on the City Council since 1995 and has served as the Council’s Finance & Budget (“F&B”) chair as recently as last year.  He’s participated in, by our count, the creation and passage of 17 City budgets…and the property tax levies that help fund all those budgeted and unbudgeted expenditures.

And yet, when it comes to budgeting and levying taxes in an economically-sustainable manner, DiPietro talks, acts and votes like someone who is…well…clueless.

Which could explain why DiPietro consistently has voted for higher and higher expenditures without commensurate increases in revenues, causing an erosion in the General Fund balance to its current critical level.  Clueless would also explain why, as recently as last Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, DiPietro was arguing for including in tonight’s vote on the FY 2012-13 budget a vote on the property tax levy…for FY 2013-14.

Despite explanations from Finance & Budget Chair Ald. Dan Knight (5th) and City Finance Director Allison Stutts, we’re not sure DiPietro is any clearer on the concept that budgets and tax levies are passed separately.  Or that he already voted on the property tax levy for the 2012-13 budget being approved tonight…back in December.

But ignorance about this process apparently can’t stop DiPietro from trying to add a couple of budget amendments to jack up spending: a $49,500 handout for one for his personal favorite private corporation “community groups,” Center of Concern; and $19,445 for raises for salaried City employees, based on some as-yet undetermined standard for measuring whether particular employees are “achieving or surpassing expectations.”

And where does DiPietro propose that extra money come from?  He doesn’t.  He’s just expecting City Mgr. Jim Hock to come up with the $68,945 total, presumably in other cuts.

Talk about the blind leading the blind.

Whether DiPietro can get the three additional votes he needs to pass these amendments remains to be seen.  We figure he can count on dependable spendthrift Ald. Tom “The Businessman” Bernick (6th), but whether he can pull two more votes may depend on how many Center of Concern supporters once again show up with their hands out to cajole and/or guilt the cash out of the Council.  

Meanwhile, the Council already is talking about increasing the City’s share of property taxes for FY 2013-14 by as much as an 11% – to be levied this coming December, Ald. DiPietro – and about a deceptively smaller tax increase combined with the institution of a separate charge for garbage collection.  Whatever form that increase takes, however, won’t even do anything to address the upcoming increase in Uptown TIF debt service costs.

Unfortunately for Park Ridge taxpayers, DiPietro and Bernick seem to be either in denial or just unconcerned.  The question tonight will be: how many other aldermen share those same problems?

To read or post comments, click on title.