By Ashley M. Casey

Associate Editor

The Cicero Town Board declined to vote on the town’s 2021 preliminary budget at its Oct. 21 meeting. Supervisor Bill Meyer proposed a motion to adopt the preliminary budget, but no one spoke up to second the motion.

“I have to tell you, I think that’s a major mistake,” Meyer told his colleagues on the board. “One of the items that would be addressed if the budget was adopted is we would be able to have that budget available to the public. … By not taking action, they will not have the opportunity to review the preliminary budget.”

Meyer said the board has had a month to review the tentative budget and ask Comptroller Elke Johanns and other department heads questions.

Town councilors expressed uncertainty and frustration about the budget process.

“Regardless of having it for a month, I could have it for six months [but] without seeing all of the changes … put into place, I don’t have a tentative budget,” Councilor Judy Boyke said.

Councilor Jon Karp said this year’s budget process has been less collaborative and efficient. Normally, the town board holds a series of workshops to hammer out the next year’s budget. This year, department heads have given overviews of their budgets over Zoom because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Elke’s great, but it’s better if we could all be in a room together,” Councilor Mike Becallo said.

“There’s a lot of room in this room. All five of us could be in this room at this moment if you wanted,” Meyer said.

At the Sept. 23 meeting, some board members questioned Meyer’s decision to keep the meetings virtual.

“I am appalled right now to understand that you’re saying that we could all be in the room right now,” Boyke said Oct. 21.

“It’s just a complete reversal of what you said over a month ago that you would not allow open meetings,” Becallo said.

Meyer said Becallo was not correctly representing what he said. Councilor Nancy White asked for a clarification and confirmed that while there is enough room in Cicero Town Hall’s auditorium for the five town board members to social distance, the meetings will still be closed to public attendance.

There are some technological logistics to consider if the town board returns to meeting in person, Karp noted.

“If we’re all in the room with laptops or microphones, it creates a horrible problem with the echo, which is part of the reason why Officer [Wayne] Freeman asked us not to do that,” Karp said. “If you had one camera with all of us it could pick up with a microphone for audio.”

While the board declined to vote on the preliminary budget, the board passed a local law allowing the town to exceed the state-mandated tax increase cap of 1.56%. White, Karp and Meyer voted yes, and Becallo and Boyke voted no.

Becallo and Boyke unsuccessfully asked their colleagues to delay the tax cap vote to Oct. 28.

“I would like to keep this open for one more week until we are able to really get our arms around our budget, which we have not had an opportunity yet because we have still more items to look at,” Boyke said.

Karp said he expects Cicero will have to raise taxes above the tax cap.

The preliminary budget attempts to offset taxes by appropriating $2.1 million from the fund balance. Even then, residents would face a 2.24% increase in taxes.

“We’re basically spending 60% of our reserves in order to buy the tax increase down to 2.24 [percent],” Karp said. “I just don’t see any way for us out of this. I think we have two choices: either raid the fund balance and meet the tax cap, or do not raid the fund balance but exceed the tax cap. I’m happy to work with everybody to try to find a third way.  I just don’t think it’s possible.”

White said passing the local law does not lock the town board into automatically raising taxes above the cap, but it is a stopgap measure.

“We can always rescind it if we don’t need it, but if we don’t pass it and we need it, then we’re in trouble,” she said.

Becallo said passing the tax cap waiver means the board is “basically saying to the town you’re giving up.” He urged the town to make cuts rather than raise taxes.

While she voted no on exceeding the tax cap, Boyke said she is wary of using reserve funds to balance the budget.

“We’ve got to keep this budget at bay and save our emergency money because we’re sure as heck going to need it next year,” she said.