Mayor Andy Schor makes line-item vetoes after Council cuts money for his office

LANSING — Mayor Andy Schor said he's vetoed parts of the budget passed Monday by the City Council, including cuts made to his executive office budget, apparently to help pay for warming centers.

"While I strongly support funding for warming and cooling centers, I'm disappointed in the way this was passed," Schor said in letter to councilmembers. "I reached out to many members of Council about the budget; unfortunately, the Council-passed items unilaterally reduced only my office budget by $270,000 to fund warming centers and for roads/sidewalk repairs."

Schor restored the cuts made to his office's budget and allocated about $1.8 million that he said was cut from departmental budgets and left unallocated by City Council.

"We must have a balanced budget, so I have added these funds to mitigate some of the reductions in operations made to our departments and bring the budget back into balance," the letter said.

Schor said he introduced "a responsible, balanced budget" and was not consulted on some of the amendments passed by the council.

He said he is working with state Sen. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, to secure money for a warming center.

"I was able to bring several departments back to the proposed amount and then I was able to add money to a few departments," Schor told the State Journal. "I didn’t add anything to the mayor’s budget. I didn’t add anything to council’s budget. I didn’t add anything to courts. I didn’t add anything to the clerk. We elected officials, we’ll do what we can with the budgets we have. But other departments, for the most part, got money."

He noted council's budget was still more than $2.7 million less than what he asked for to fund city operations.

Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Lansing Mayor Andy Schor vetoes City Council cuts to his office