Green Bay department heads struggle with City Council request to cut 20% of spending proposal
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GREEN BAY − Two city department heads on Monday said it will be difficult to meet the City Council's expectation to shave $1 million from Mayor Eric Genrich's proposed new spending for 2023, in part because staffing and budgeting had been so thin during the pandemic.
"We'll present the least bad option first, but it won't be easy" to reduce police spending, Chief Chris Davis said.
About 93% of the Green Bay Police Department's budget is driven by personnel, so it's difficult to make budget cuts without affecting how the department is staffed, Davis said.
Seven of the 12 council members voted, at the end of a five-hour meeting Thursday, to ask department heads to cut proposed increases to their budgeted spending by 20%. In actual dollars, that totals $1.04 million in cuts.
Genrich proposed a budget that included over $5 million in added spending compared with this year's budget. Police and fire spending accounts for about 62% of the 2023 budget proposal.
Council President Jesse Brunette said the goal had been to generally reduce the mayor's spending increases, saying he suggested cuts ranging from 5% to 25%. But several department heads said they believed elected officials were asking them specifically to cut 20% from the increased spending. With such a cut, the city still would spend about $4 million more than in 2022.
Genrich had proposed spending $96.7 million and collecting $49.2 million in property taxes. City Council members had cut that slightly in committee meetings earlier this month.
Two former council members went public Sunday in opposing the cuts proposed after Thursday's meeting. They have asked taxpayers to turn out at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the council meeting to protest reductions to Genrich's budget. City officials say their budget must be finished this week so tax bills can be mailed out.
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Former council members Barbara Dorff and Lynn Gerlach shared a blog post opposing the cuts, and that said the owner of an average-value home, assessed at $172,500, would get only about $21 in tax relief on their city bill if council members approved a 20% cut. Dorff and Gerlach, who were defeated in last spring's elections, wrote that cutting Genrich's proposed spending by $1.04 million could threaten essential services.
"What does the city lose," the two former elected officials wrote. "An ambulance? A bridge repair? Life-saving firefighting gear? Lifeguards for our pools?"
The Green Bay Press-Gazette was unable to reach either former council member Monday.
Brunette disputed the idea that the council is forcing cutbacks in public safety and city jobs.
Green Bay could "cut staff through attrition, by not filling an opening for three months or six months ... but people who talk about cutting firefighters or garbage pickup are taking a hysterical approach," he said. "And that's not what we're asking departments to do."
City Attorney Joanne Bungert said her department had only recently reached a level of full staffing after two attorneys were added this year. Budget cuts, she said, would mean longer waits for everything if there were fewer staffers performing the work.
"If you're cutting people, you're cutting services," Bungert said. "We'll see if we can (reduce spending), but we're talking about real positions, with real effects."
Council members who voted for the 20% cut were Brunette, Steve Campbell, Jennifer Grant, Melinda Eck, Bill Morgan, Mark Steuer and Chris Wery. Those who opposed the cut were council members Jim Hutchison, Brian Johnson, Randy Scannell and Craig Stevens. Bill Galvin was absent Thursday.
From his office in the Police Department, Davis said he would do the best he could when some of the department's budget is supported by grant funding, as it is with school-resource officers and police who work the Packers games, and that the staff who do administrative work has been "cut to the bone."
"All we can do is tell (council) the truth, and the truth is you're asking us to make some difficult decisions," he said Monday.
Contact Doug Schneider at (920) 431-8333 or 265-2070. Follow him on Twitter @PGDougSchneider
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay department heads struggle with request to cut budget by 20%
