As a City Council member, how will you use your one vote?

Question

You are one of four members of the City Council of Adam. Tax and other revenues are down significantly due to an increase in violent crime and arson, which has caused a sudden unexpected exodus of citizens and businesses from the community. This has also caused a budget shortfall forcing harsh choices upon the Council. The police have requested funds to replace two members of the city’s four member force who have recently resigned and moved away. They also need to replace one of their three patrol units. The costs of recruitment, payroll and benefits for the two officers, plus the replacement patrol unit, are $200,000. The fire department needs to replace one of its two fire engines. The cost of the new fire engine will be $200,000. The City Orphanage partially burnt down in one of the arsons. Thirty orphans must now share an amount of space which, by law, can only have a maximum living capacity of fifteen. Cost to repair the orphanage is $200,000. All possible options have been considered by the Council. Only ONE of the items can be funded with the $200,000 left in the city’s budget. Question: as a City Council member, how will you use your one vote: do you choose to approve funding for new police officers and the patrol unit they will need, the fire engine, or the repairs to the orphanage? Why have you made this decision and how did you come to your conclusions?

Answer 1

First I'm glad you re-asked this question.

I would recommend purchasing 1 used but sound police car and replacing 1 officer. The cost of which could be kept under $75K.

I would allocate $60K to upgrade the fire engine to an above satisfactory condition.

I would place the other $65K to building an addition to the existing orphanage to bring it compliant to accommodate 35 people.

Then I would submit a call for the state to allocate more funds to my county/city for what ever else I needed.

Answer 2

Neither; first I would use approximately $120,000 of the money for a single officer and replacement of the patrol vehicle.  Then pledge $80,000 to purchase materials to rebuild the orphanage and challenge public service groups, businesses, schools, and any one I can to come out and build it.  If they don't come out and build it then get an architect to design an $80,000 addition to the current 15 child orphanage rather then trying to replace the one burnt down.  

Also ask for donations for the patrol car, even if it means having to put "donated by" on the car.  If you are successful in sasving some money in purchasing such a car (or buy a used car) then put that money into a volunteer program within the police department.  Get people to come out and ride with officers as volunteers to increase your presence on the streets.  (by the way our city did that and we currently have 70 volunteers in a city of 17,000).

BTW..if there was a fire at the orphanage what about insurance kicking in to replace it?

Answer 3

This is the plan I would put forward:

Pair the two police officers in one unit. When they are both off-duty, arrange for the County Sheriff or the State Police to provide police protection for the City of Adam.

Municipalities sell their fire engines occasionally; start checking the want ads.

As to the orphanage, move the children temporarily to such facilities as the Salvation Army, the YMCA, and various church-affiliated organizations in the area.

I would do this not to get out of the orphanage business, but to give the children a place to stay while the orphanage was being repaired.

Solutions can be found to the police and fire dilemmas. Those solutions are not perfect, but they exist. Therefore, I would focus on the orphanage issue. I would do what I could with the funds available and encourage private sources to fill in the gap.

Answer 4

I would choose to fund the repairs to the orphanage. To me that is the priority. If the orphanage partially burnt down, then it needs to be repaired ASAP. That is ridiculous to have 30 children living in that small of quarters. Children are our future and they need to be treated with respect and the treasures that they are. Those children deserve to have their living quarters rebuilt. I believe in my heart that this is the more important project to spend the money on. I choose the children.