MIN CHC 1999-09-08 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

TAKAHASHI: No. RAY: Philosophically, this is a major issue in terms of the Mayor vs. the Council and how all this works, so does anybody want to ask Mr. Takahashi anymore on this? YOSHIYAMA: Is there any bearing on balanced budget, what you're proposing? TAKAHASHI: No, because the Charter does not require that the budget be balanced. The Charter requires that expenditures do not exceed revenues, that's all, so you can have more revenues than expenses. RAY: Mr. Yuen has something to share on this in regard to the Corporation Counsel's involvement. YUEN: Yes, I did look at Corp Counsel's Opinion on this question and what they said was the Charter does say that when the Council strikes out one of the Mayor's proposed appropriations, and sends it back to the Mayor, the Mayor cannot restore that appropriation. In other words, when the budget bill comes back to the Mayor with things that the Council has put in that the Mayor doesn't like, the Mayor can then strike those out, send them back to the Council. And if the Council wants to put them back in, it's a six to three vote by the Council, to put the Council's money back in. • But once the Council has voted, by a majority vote, five to four, not to fund certain items that the Mayor would like to fund, that the Mayor cannot stick those back in. If I'm understanding your suggestion correctly, the effect would be that if the Mayor got to then resubmit those funds, then they would be in the budget unless the Council voted six to three not to fund them again. • TAKAHASHI: Yes. YUEN: The Corp Counsel based their Opinion on the present Charter, both on the language of the Charter and on normal ideas of the separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislative bodies, where, to spend money, you have an appropriation by a Legislative body, and if you don't have a majority vote of the Council in favor of spending money for a particular purpose, then you don't have an appropriation. TAKAHASHI: 5.3-3: These are the powers of the Finance Director. I looked at the HRS. 1 was wondering why the Purchasing Agent, the Treasurer and the Auditor was specifically mentioned in the Charter. It was done so because in the old days, we had these positions in one of the Chapters in the HRS. But subsequent to that, these sections in the HRS have all been repealed. I don't think it's a major problem because the HRS no longer exists, however, it seems like, by having this in the Charter, that 28