SCRANTON — City council will introduce the mayor’s proposed 2023 city budget Thursday and could vote to adopt the spending plan as early as Nov. 29, based on a tentative schedule of the budget process.
Council will also hold budget-focused caucuses with department heads and administration officials this month. The first will take place Thursday at 5:30 p.m., when Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti’s administration will present a budget overview with input from the city’s Office of Economic and Community Development and Code Enforcement and Parks and Recreation departments.
Introduction of the budget ordinance would follow during Thursday’s regular meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. That will allow for potential passage by Nov. 29, with the budget subject to amendments between introduction and final adoption.
Council President Kyle Donahue is running as the Democratic candidate for state representative in the 113th state House District in Tuesday’s election. The next state representative’s term begins Dec. 1.
If he defeats Republican challenger Aaron Sepkowski for the House seat, Donahue could still vote on the 2023 city budget — as long as the vote happens on Nov. 29.
The Cognetti administration furnished council with the proposed budget last week, earlier than usual. It follows last year’s contentious budget process that wrapped up in mid-December, with council approving nearly 100 amendments to correct errors and other issues that plagued the administration’s original 2022 budget proposal.
Donahue said he’s confident this year’s process will be less turbulent and endorsed the tentative schedule.
“We wanted to make sure we had enough time to properly review everything, get everything in order, without really cramming it in, which was sort of how it played out the last couple years,” he said.
During upcoming budget caucuses, department heads will speak to elements of the proposed spending plan that pertain to their departments.
A caucus with the Department of Public Works and Police and Fire Departments will begin at 5:45 p.m. on Nov. 15. Council plans to advance the budget ordinance that night during its regular meeting, then table it pending a public hearing Nov. 22.
A department head work session with the mayor’s office, Department of Business Administration and the Law Department is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Nov. 17.
“I think the schedule is nice because it fits all of the departments within a period of hearings, and allows a public hearing, before the holiday season,” Cognetti said.
