Sacramento High Council approves budget with 5 additional employees for Mayor Kevin Johnson
The Sacramento City Council gave initial approval Tuesday to a budget that costs nearly $7 million more than the spending plan proposed by the city manager and includes five additional employees for Mayor Kevin Johnson.
The late-night additions to City Manager John Shirey’s proposed budget of $940 million totaled about $6.9 million. The extra spending includes full-time employees whose costs are projected to increase annually by about 4 percent, according to Leyne Milstein, Sacramento’s finance director.
The council members who opposed the additional costs were Larry Carr, Steve Hansen and Jeff Harris.
Shirey began the budget portion of Tuesday night’s council meeting by saying he continued to support the passage of the budget as written – without any significant additions or reductions.That included five mayoral positions that would bolster the mayor’s staff and increase his spending by 70 percent. The positions, three of which were listed in the city manager’s line item rather than in the mayor’s budget request, drew skepticism and critique from some council members who believed the mayor had not fully justified the jump in staff and and spending.Hansen, who has been a vocal critic of the mayor’s moves to fortify his office, made a late play to propose an alternate solution: reallocate those five full-time jobs to the Department of Parks and Recreation. That proposal failed by a 3-6 vote.
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