TOWN HALL: Bach acts like Thomas Jefferson (poll)

Mayor Steve Bach is a king! Councilwoman Lisa Czelatdko says Bach intends “to take away the voice of citizens.” His plan “goes against everything our country was founded on.”

Not quite, councilor. Read history.

Council President Scott Hente and President Pro Tem Jan Martin are also in a snit. Each worries about City Attorney Chris Melcher’s recent opinion that says our mayor has authority to ignore council’s budget decisions — even when council overrides the executive’s budgetary vetoes — by neglecting to execute expenditures. The dispute began after council chose to override several of Bach’s line-item vetoes, such as an additional code enforcement officer and $175,000 for tennis court maintenance.

Leaked emails reveal that Bach was reluctant to execute the spending last year, even after his vetoes were rejected. Bach backed down, agreeing to the irresponsible expenditures, but the question of authority remains.

If Bach refuses to spend what council budgets, he exercises a fundamental executive privilege that goes back to the earliest days our republic. It is called impoundment — a tool used by mayors throughout the country and available to 43 governors. The Colorado governor is required to impound some legislative expenditures, if faced with a budgetary shortfall. (CRS 24-75-201.5; 24-2-103; 24-50-109.5)

President Thomas Jefferson used impoundment in 1801, after Congress appropriated $50,000 for new Navy gunboats he decided we no longer needed.

Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J. — the fiscal reformer a lot of Republicans begged to run for president — has impounded millions in legislated expenditures to help reduce state spending by $1 billion.

Gov. Mitch Daniels, R-Ind. — another fiscal hawk — wrote in the Wall Street Journal that his state remains solvent, with a AAA credit rating, “only because our legislature gave me the power to adjust spending to new realities.”

National debt became an issue after the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act rescinded presidential impoundment in 1974. President Bill Clinton, with cooperation of a Congress that knew it lacked restraint, restored executive budget authority when he signed the Line Item Veto Act of 1996. He used the law 82 times, becoming the last president to balance the budget, before the Supreme Court struck it down in 1998. That ruling, coupled with loss of impoundment, led to our country’s fiscal fiasco.

Should the mayor have authority to decline execution of City Council's spending decisions? Vote in poll to the right. Must vote to see results.

Legislative branches, such as the Springs City Council, cannot control spending because legislators benefit by doing favors for constituents. Accountability is diluted among many, and elections can be purchased with tennis courts and code inspectors. At the federal level we hear of this phenomenon in terms of “pork,” and “earmarks.”

Springs voters chose a system in which the city’s executive does not work for council and serves as a separate branch that keeps council in check. To improve the system, and resolve the question of final budget authority, we need a charter amendment that codifies the mayor’s authority to impound legislative expenses.

Our mayor needs the same authority afforded most other government executives: the ability to avoid writing checks we cannot cash.

That's our view. What's yours? Please initiate or join in a Facebook discussion below, and vote in poll to the upper right.

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