WPCNR QUILL AND EYESHADE. Interview with Former  White Plains Mayor Alfred Del Vecchio. January 4, 2007: Eliminating the Budget Director in the City of White Plains means “the city will have less control of its money and there’s more room for mischief,” former Mayor Alfred Del Vecchio told WPCNR  last week, discussing why his administration created the position of Budget Director and a Budget Department in his administration (1976-1993).

Mayor Alfred Del Vecchio, October 2005.

Photo, WPCNR News Archive

 The former Mayor notes when he was a councilman, in the early 70s during Mayor Richard Hendey’s administration,  he observed city commissioners had the discretion to spend money as they saw fit,  and not spending tax dollars as allocated. When Del Vecchio  became Mayor in 1976, he moved to correct this and created the Budget Director position to eliminate this “mischief,” after learning of the Budget Director concept at the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Origins of Budget Director.

The Mayor recalled that when he was a Councilman in the Hendy administration ( the council consisted of 6 Republicans “working together.” He described the councilpersons as six little mayors each working with the city commissioners to prepare the budget.

There was a Finance Department which paid bills and handled the city accounts.

Del Vecchio said each councilman was assigned a commissioner and would work with the Commissioner to prepare that Department budget.   

The former Mayor recalled the incident that showed him how budgets were spent by the Commissioners:

“What happened was each councilperson depending on what his experience was, was assigned a department. Being an engineer, I was assigned Public Works. That’s the way the city was run then. He (Public Works Commissioner) wanted  some extra money one time to convert water meters to be read outside.

            We didn’t have the money, I said we just don’t have the money to do that. He said if I find the money can I have it?  I said you can, but tell me where you’re going to find the money. I had looked at the budget and I didn’t know where he could find money. He  was “finding it” from personnel. I said, how are we going to pay the people if we take this from personnel. He said we have this in the budget. It was taxed for, but we never hired the person. I said whoaaa…you can’t do that (chuckling)  I allowed him to have the money, but as soon as I became Mayor I put a stop to that. Any personnel position that wasn’t filled we took the money away.

               In the late 70s we had a dip in the budget one year. The expenses went way down because we didn’t fund personnel that year.”

Managing your Own Budget 11 months out of the year

Del Vecchio felt this practice was widespread at the time because there was little direct day-to-day supervision of the Departments: “Everyone (The Commissioners) did it (in the early 70s). These are little things the commissioners do. I’m sure that there were lots of them that we never found out about. A Budget Director looks into these things day-in, and day-out.”

The Mayor recalls seeing the danger in this practice when there was only the Finance Department and the Commissioners and very brief Council oversight:

A Bad Mistake

“Don’t forget, as a councilman at the time,  I went over the budget with the Commissioner  (of Public Works) for maybe a couple of weeks, three, four weeks, maybe a month. For the other 48 weeks he was on his own spending his money. The Budget Director does this (going over the budget) 12 months of the year. That’s why it is a bad mistake to do away with the Budget Director, or to allow the Commissioner of Finance to take over the duties in any manner, shape or form of the Budget Director, even temporarily.”

Internal Auditor Not the Answer

When Mr. Del Vecchio was elected Mayor in 1975, assuming office in 1976, he moved to get a handle on the spending process he had observed in his council days:

“When I became Mayor, I wanted better control of the budget, I thought it was needed for the city of White Plains. I had never been involved in politics before, and while I was Chairman of a department at Manhattan College, I had never handled that kind of budget I was expected to handle as Mayor. But I knew I wanted better control and we hit upon the idea of having an internal auditor.”

The Mayor said Councilwoman Joyce Gordon, after observing the Internal Auditor for a few months told him the process wasn’t working:  “I said what will we do. But, at that time I attended the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. Somebody there said the way it is done is to have a Budget Director and a Finance Commissioner. I began to learn at that Conference what a Budget Director was supposed to do and what a Finance Commissioner was supposed to do.”

Not the same function.

“When we introduced the Budget Director concept to the Common Council, we explained exactly what was happening. From my thirty years of teaching, whenever we did anything we had both a philosophy for it and we had everything well organized. We said this is what the Budget Director is going to do.

        The council in general (in 1976-77) complained about the Internal Auditor. I listened to them but I didn’t  know what to do. The minute I put together this Budget Director (concept) with the help of the people at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, it was a natural. They (the council) accept it, welcomed it  and said Al, this sounds great, let’s go ahead with it.”

WPCNR asked why the Internal Auditor (hired by the Mayor) not able to give the financial oversight the Mayor was looking for at the time. Mayor Del Vecchio said 

“The Internal Auditor was focusing on how the Mayor’s office was interacting with the budget. That was the wrong direction. The Budget Director really is an independent person and should not depend on the Mayor’s office at all. I gave Eileen Earl  (Mayor Del Vecchio’s second Budget Director, Kevin Fish was the first), a free hand. She took care of capital projects, a major, major function. My job was to make sure the Commissioners got their reports to her in on time. They would delay their reports.”

Commissioners Do Not Like Budget Directors.

In an aside, Mayor Del Vecchio related the uneasy relationship that existed between the Commissioners and his Budget Directors (Mr. Fish and Ms. Earl): “Commissioners mind you don’t really like a Budget Director.  She’s not their friend. She watches how they spend money. They were reluctant to tell her exactly what they were doing with the money. We made sure they got the reports in on time. It was all done good naturedly. The council loved it. It was through Eileen Earl that we begun to get the accounting awards. She was the first one to receive it.”

Commenting on those rough and tumble budget years, Del Vecchio summed them up this way:

“There always was a Finance Commissioner who paid the bills, took care of the checking account. He did all the money things. The budget was a free-floating thing. The Commissioners wanted a budget. The Commissioners would come to the Mayor. The Mayor would ask for help from the Council. There was no real structure to how the budget was formed or came about. The budget director was the one who gave it structure.”

Predicts There Will Never Be Another Budget Director.

Del Vecchio predicted the future: “You know as well as I do they are not going to hire a Budget Director. Joe (Delfino) knows politics. He’s been in the game long enough. We’re going to look at it again in the spring. Let me remind you of something, the valet parking. Remember when they said they would reevaluate it in a few months? They still have valet parking. The trick of the game is to delay these things and the people forget about it and you just continue them. He knows that game and he plays it well.”

A Step Backward

WPCNR asked Del Vecchio what will be the effect of eliminating the Budget Director.

“I think it is a step backward,” He said. “I think the city will have less control of the money. There’s more room for mischief. You need tight controls. You’re talking about $150 Million a year. That’s a lot of money and the Budget Director really earns his or her own salary by keeping tight controls. A good Budget Director is indispensable.”

WPCNR asked if the city rationale that eliminating the budget department would save money made sense. Del Vecchio demurred:

“I did read last week that it was a duplication of effort and a burden on the tax payers to have two different departments (Finance and Budget) doing the same job. That is absolutely not true. They do not do the same job. They do absolutely different jobs from different perspectives.

The Difference

“The Finance Commissioner is interested in the investment of the city funds, what kind of fund balance we have. The F.C. works with banks, the investment of city funds. The Finance Commissioner has very little to do with Capital Projects. The question is can one person do both jobs?

           One person should not do both jobs because it gives you the potential for mischief. There’s not enough cross-checks with the budget and we see that in many budgets, including the federal government. These funds have a way of blending in and being spent. No one may really have their hands in the till, but money is wasted without the oversight  (day-to-day) of a separate person – the Budget Director. One person can not have control of $140 Million a year.

             The best way I can explain is that one person has charge of the day-to-day operations of the city (Budget Director), and the other the more futuristic operations of the city (Finance Commissioner), taking this money which is lying around and putting it to good use.”