The city manager Catler faced the challenge of reducing the proposed budget by the city council. The taxpayers of Westview City voted against the proposed budget. The city manager proposed an increase in the budget by 10% from 6%, a move not welcomed by citizens in Westview City (Feldman & Banovetz, 2008). After the budget’s defeat, Mayor Glassman called the city manager to brief him about the planned Westview city council meeting, which was scheduled within two days after the bad news of the budget’s defeat. The Major instructed the city manager to equip himself with the answers to the two key questions, namely his suggested budget changes and what the council and the city manager could do differently to understand the needs of the Westview city taxpayers (Feldman & Banovetz, 2008). The city manager should come up with appropriate available budget changes and their weaknesses and strengths. As a result, the city manager proposed three possible budget changes with their strengths and weaknesses and provided the best option (or best recommendation) for the Westview city budget.
Budget changes
The options available for the proposed budget include requests for new supplies, equipment, and positions, police bicycle squad, and Sunday library opening. Therefore, to understand the best option for Westview City, it is important to examine the weakness and strengths of each option. The assessment of each option enables comparison between the options to make the appropriate choices for the budget changes.
Option 1: Equipment, Supplies, and New Positions
This option is defensible. However, it is associated with weaknesses and strengths. Some of its strengths include it creates job opportunities for the target groups such as police officers. Furthermore, the equipment (police cruisers) eases the work of police officers. For instance, when they are moving to work. The approach will put more police cruisers on the streets of Westview City than having only one police officer handling one vehicle. The new street sweeper was significant in managing the snow. The supplies, such as large dump trucks, would help plow the snow. Even though this budget change proposal was necessary, it would lead to an additional increase in spending. For example, the equipment required $ 1,000,000 in additional spending. When this accumulated with an increase in cost–a living wage, normal upsurges in materials, supplies, utilities, and a 6% increase in healthcare premiums, the budget would increase by 10%.
Option 2: Police Bicycle Squad
Police bicycle squad provides real-quality life to police officers. For example, it offers enhanced mobility, greater accessibility, and increased presence and visibility. The use of bicycles enables police officers to navigate narrow streets, congested areas, and pedestrian-only zones with ease, allowing such officers to respond immediately and access inaccessible areas (Rantatalo, 2016). Moreover, bicycles allow police officers to interact with the community (Rantatalo, 2016). This proximity to the use of bicycles enables the community and police officers to develop trust and improve communication between the community members and police officers. Again, the presence of police officers on bicycles is conspicuous and visible. This visibility deters antisocial behavior and criminal activity (Rantatalo, 2016). The inclusion of the program proved significant for both community and police officers. Nonetheless, its incorporation in the budget increased the budget spending, thus burdening the taxpayers.
Option 3: Sunday Opening of Libraries
Increasing Sunday library hours was the service the Westview City citizens needed. The approach is essential because it allows the citizens to enjoy increased community engagement, support from underserved populations, support for working professionals, enhanced educational opportunities, and convenience for community members (Igwebuike et al., 2018). Increasing the library hours would require the recruitment of additional workers, and this led to an increase in budget spending. Furthermore, extended Sunday library hours might require additional security measures to guarantee the safety of library users and staff. There would be decreased use of library services during low demand. Typically, increasing library hours does not directly associated with its use. For this reason, they may be certain periods when there would be few users, leading to a wastage of operational costs. Therefore, the option was important but would increase the budget.
Recommendation
Based on the three options available for budget changes for Westview City, all options are necessary and important for the target groups. However, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of the three options demonstrates that options 1 and 2 are more significant to the target groups (police officers and citizens) than option 3. For this reason, option 3 is important and necessary, but it should pave the way for options 1 and 2, based on a restrained budget and the needs of the taxpayers of Westview City. Hence, options 1 and 2 require further assessment to determine with greater importance to the target groups.
Options 1 and 2 address the needs of the taxpayers and workers (police officers). However, considering the strengths of options 1 and 2, option 2 is less important. For instance, option 1 provides more benefits to the taxpayers and the workers (police officers and others). On the other hand, option 2 offers more benefits to police officers. Therefore, option 1 deserves more inclusion in the Westview city budget than Option 2.
For this reason, the city manager should recommend option 1 to the council because of its strengths (benefits) to the community and workers, including police officers. Dropping options 2 and 3 from the proposed budget would lower the budget spending, and the public is likely to vote for the new changes in the budget based on the importance of the services they would receive from the program. Furthermore, the current proposed budget would not burden them as before when all the options were incorporated.
References
Feldman, B .M. & Banovetz, J.M. (2008). Unknown taxpayer preferences: Cases in decision making. Engelska.
Igwebuike, E.U., Agbo, A.D., & Echezona, N.P. (2018). Developing effective library services for children and young people in public libraries: A structured review. Journal of Information and Knowledge Management, 9(4), 14-25. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/iijikm.v9i4.2
Rantatalo, O. (2016). Using police bicycle patrols to manage social order in bicycle and pedestrian traffic networks: A Swedish case study. The Police Journal, 89(1), 18–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0032258X16639426
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