Editorial: Mayor’s budget plan is a sound starting point

It’s the kind of budget that balances wants and needs without further encumbering current or future taxpayers.

Mayor Richard Berry’s plan for fiscal 2014 includes no layoffs, no tax increases, 160 new hires, 1 percent pay raises for some and pay restoration for others, Rio Grande bosque improvements, a BioPark master plan, more recycling, more paramedic response units and more money in reserves.

Yes, the $481 million budget is up 1.1 percent over the previous fiscal year, but it has grown less than the rate of inflation, which was 1.5 percent. It is based on a conservative revenue estimate of 1.7 percent, half of what city number crunchers could have used. And it takes 48 vacant positions permanently off the books, shrinking unnecessary government while permanently funding animal welfare and library positions that had been using one-time dollars.

Berry says “we’ve delivered a balanced, fiscally responsible budget to City Council that really, in my opinion, returns a tremendous value to taxpayers.” Council President Dan Lewis says “the mayor has made a solid recommendation and has given the council a good start on what will be another very challenging budget season” and councilors “will scrutinize every dollar.”

That’s their job, and undoubtedly adjustments will be made. But they are starting with a budget that funds operational needs (the higher minimum wage for seasonal employees, the cost of special and runoff elections) as well as infrastructure investments (capitalizing on the existing amenities of the bosque and the BioPark). And it does it without sacrificing services or pulling more money from taxpayers. That’s due in great part to the responsible budgets Berry and the Council have approved since 2009.

And it puts the city in a solid fiscal position for 2014.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.