Cirino Bill Will Guarantee Local Budget Control

COLUMBUS - Senator Jerry C. Cirino (R-Kirtland) will introduce legislation tomorrow to guarantee that a local city council can keep control over its budget and protect its appropriation power.

Existing law requires appropriation decisions must be made by a municipal corporation’s elected city council. Cirino’s legislation will ensure that the statutory budgeting authority of city council cannot be sidestepped, protecting the lawful fiscal authority of elected city councils.

“Councilmembers are the duly elected representatives of their city,” said Cirino, “It is their duty and responsibility under the law to appropriate city funds to care for the safety and security of their fellow residents.”

This bill is critically important to safeguard, for instance, the City of Cleveland’s financial stability as it faces an initiative to allocate 2% of its budget to be spent by an unelected, unaccountable board. To put that into perspective, that 2% represents the entire budget of the city’s Building and Housing Department, and seven times the budget for the city’s Department of Aging.

This legislation will ensure that locally elected city council members are accountable to voters when spending taxpayer dollars.