Ahead of Monday’s pivotal vote by Akron City Council, Mayor Shammas Malik’s proposed $815 million operating budget doesn’t appear to have the support it needs to pass unless the mayor agrees to cut the size of his office staff.
Malik is seeking funding for 23 staffers for his office in his first operating budget as mayor, with a net of eight more positions than the previous administration. Only a handful of roles remain unfilled. Council members believe it to be the largest and most expensive mayor’s office in the city’s history.
A majority of City Council members will vote against the operating budget because of the mayor’s office expenses, a source with knowledge of the situation told Signal Akron, if it is not amended by the March 25 meeting. A budget must be passed, one way or another, by the end of the month, and nine of the 13 council members would need to approve any amendment or change to the existing proposal.
“I don’t think it’s ever happened. It’s something we don’t want to happen,” Council President Margo Sommerville told Signal Akron about City Council outright rejecting a mayor’s proposed budget.
“The charter is clear, it spells out exactly when the budget has to be voted on to pass. If not, there are a lot of things in jeopardy: Our bond rating. We definitely don’t want to jeopardize that in any way. It’s really serious, and I hope that we can come to a compromise so hopefully we can get the budget passed on Monday.”
Negotiations are ongoing
Sommerville, who questioned Malik’s budget on Monday, confirmed Thursday afternoon that she has been having “conversations with a few members of the administration” this week to come up with an amendment to the budget. She and other council members want to see the funds currently budgeted for the six unfilled positions in the mayor’s office reallocated to the Department of Neighborhood Assistance and other areas.
The mayor’s spokesperson did not immediately return Signal Akron’s request for comment asking if Malik would agree to a compromise. In a livestream on Wednesday with Finance Director Steve Fricker, Malik defended the need for the new positions in his administration.
“I don’t believe what we’re doing is top heavy,” he said. “… It is important as we’re talking about our city government that we have to say, ‘If we are going to be more collaborative, if we are going to be more strategic, it requires capacity.’ We all just have so many hours in a day.”
Malik also indicated in the livestream that he is, in fact, open to the idea of a compromise with City Council.
“At the end of the day, we’re going to figure out something that works,” he said. “So if that means compromising on some of that, and working through an amendment process with council, then we’re going to do that. That’s perfectly fine, that’s how this process should work.… But I’m not hiring people to drive me around or anything like that. I really view this as making sure we have a city government where folks aren’t burnt out.”
But as of late Friday morning, the two sides hadn’t agreed to anything.
“It’s day-by-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute,” Sommerville told Signal Akron about when an agreement might be reached with the Malik administration.
“If no amendment comes through, for me, it’s going to be very hard for me to vote on the budget that is before council currently,” she explained. “It’s hard for me to justify a record-breaking budget and salaries in the mayor’s office when we have so many other issues that are happening in the city that we are not addressing and that we’re not dealing with.”
Ward 8 Council Member James Hardy, who first questioned the proposed size of Malik’s office at the first budget hearing on March 12, said, “There’s a growing concern on council about the utter lack of attention being paid to the departments that serve the neighborhoods.… There definitely is what I would consider to be a disconnect between what appear to be Mayor Malik’s priorities on paper and what is showing up in this budget.”
Sommerville elaborated on why she wants the money budgeted for unfilled mayoral positions to be allocated to the Department of Neighborhood Assistance.
“The fact is that 311 calls continue to increase every year, and we’ve heard that there are often extended hold times for residents who called into 311,” she said. City Council is “looking to provide more resources to neighborhood assistance, and allowing the staff there to figure out how they can best use those resources, whether that’s hiring an extra person to be able to answer the calls. That’s one area.”
Another area of concern that came up during the budget process was “the court, particularly the housing court, asking for a grant writer,” Sommerville continued. “We know in Akron, evictions are an issue and the housing court is doing a great job trying to address those issues. And we should be able to support them with a grant writer so they can access more funds to be able to make a larger impact in that space addressing evictions in Akron.”
Sommerville also wants to increase City Council’s Neighborhood Grant Program, where each ward is currently allotted $10,000 for neighborhood improvement grants. She wants them to be able to allocate $15,000.
“These are just some of the things that we’re looking to reallocate money to,” she said, “wanting to put some resources in some places where residents can actually feel those investments.”
Hardy told Signal Akron he’d vote to approve the budget if that type of amendment came in.
Though it would be unprecedented in Akron’s history, City Council doesn’t actually need Malik’s approval to amend the budget, Sommerville said.
“Let me be clear, the reality of it is no,” they don’t need the administration’s cooperation on an amendment, she said. “The charter is clear, Council does have the ability with a two-thirds majority to vote to make any adjustments it wants to to the budget. For us, it’s important to do this in conjunction, in partnership with the administration. We’re legislators, we are not administrators, and we’re not trying to do their job at the administration. We want to do this in a collaborative, partnership kind of way.”
