Budget Deadline Looms for Hyattsville Council

Fiscally, it's coming down to the wire for the city of Hyattsville. With less than two weeks until the start of the new fiscal year, the Hyattsville City Council still has yet to adopt a budget. 

After a particularly long budget season marked by frustration expressed by some city council members over the timeliness of the release of budget documents, a still unresolved debate over retiree health care benefits, and a city election which saw six new council members take office, city leaders are still unsure when they might get around to approving next year's budget. 

"Right now, I don't know if we will approve a budget by 11:59 on June 30," said Mayor Marc Tartaro in an interview after last night's city council meeting. "I have no indication."

"It depends on how many people have changes they want to make," said Hyattsville City Council Vice President Paula Perry (Ward 4) in an interview. "I don't think any of us are aware of who wants to make changes yet. I'm hoping it all comes this week, but 

The city council is at the tail end of a particularly grueling series of special sessions scheduled throughout June designed to tackle the thornier issues in the budget. As of last night, the city council had been briefed on all the major aspects of the budget. 

"We've completed the review of all the departments' budget, and completed the review of the CIP [Capital Improvement Plan] and debt service," said Jerry Schiro, Hyattsville's recently hired city administrator in an interview. "At this junction, the council has reviewed the budgetary information. At some point they have to make a decision to schedule that vote."

If the city council does not approve a budget by July 1, the city could endure a municipal version of a government shutdown. Despite the time crunch, that's a scenario which Council Member Shani Warner (Ward 2) said is unlikely to happen.

"That's not going to happen. I think everyone here is unhappy as we are about giving our personal lives over to this part time job," said Warner, emphasizing "part time" with the familiar air quote hand gesture. "I cannot foresee this going past the deadline."

Warner also said that Mayor Marc Tartaro's gradual releasing of budget documents unnecessarily slowed the budget review process.

For months, Tartaro has been pushing the previous and current city council to adjust the health care benefit plan currently available to retired city employees. His intention was to have the council revise the city's retiree health care benefit program, in order to free up some room in the budget, before presenting a full budget to council. The cost to establish a trust fund to ensure that retiree health care benefits, commonly referred to as other post-employment benefits (OPEB), will drain the city's budget by nearly $1 million next year.  

Eventually, the city council passed a resolution ordering Tartaro to produce a budget by the end of May, per the city charter which requires a complete budget be presented at least 32 days before the start of the next fiscal year on July 1. 

"It was clear that the old council was not going to come to a decision on OPEB, period, and so given that reality, I'm disappointed that the mayor didn't come up with the plan to build in some of those assumptions into the budget," said Warner. 

The Hyattsville City Council takes up the budget again on Wednesday at 8 p.m. in the Hyattsville Municipal Building at 3810 Gallatin Street.