Voluntary curbside recycling and school recycling have been eliminated from this year’s budget with a mayoral line-item veto that dropped the expected tax rate by 16 cents.
Mayor Bruce Chuluda Monday vetoed Monday a $250,000 program to pick up recycling from residents who wanted to participate. The mayor had originally proposed a program that was funded by a pay-per-bag trash collection program, but the council removed that program from the budget.
Chuluda said the city will move forward on an enhanced drop-off recycling program that had been discussed during earlier budget meetings. The program will not affect the tax rate as it is expected reduced trash disposal fees would offset the recycling costs. Chuluda said details on the program would be forthcoming.
In addition to the long-discussed recycling program, the mayor used a line-item veto to eliminate about $35,000 set aside in the city’s contigency fund for the school department to establish its own recycling program. The school department had not included any money in its budget to begin such a program.
The mayor also used a line-item veto to eliminate an additional $20,000 in the contingecy fund in order to bring the city’s budget under a limit set for the city’s total budget growth by a formula in LD1.
The line-item vetoes were no surpise to city councilors. With Councilor President Brendan Rielly and Councilor Drew Gattine both away for the meeting, Councilor Michael Foley, acting as pro-tem president for the evening, asked if there was a motion to override the veto, but none came forward. To override the veto, the council would have needed a two-thirds majority of the full council, or five votes. Councilor Ed Symbol had previously voted to pass the budget only because he knew the mayor would be vetoing the curbside recycling.
Mayor Chuluda last vetoed the budget in 2004, when he attempted to salvage a pay-per-bag trash disposal system in an effort to reduce the city’s costs and to reduce an expected 4.2 percent tax increase to 2.9 percent. The 2004 veto came as a surprise to councilors, who overrode the it 5-2.
This year’s final budget – which had it’s first business day on Monday – comes in at about $51.2 million. With this year’s revaluation, the tax rate is $15.44 per $1,000 of valuation, down 16 cents from the budget passed by the council at the June 25 meeting. This rate is up 2.7 percent over last year’s tax rate, but down from the rate of 3.5 percent in the mayor’s original budget.
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