He jets to Denmark and Sweden to huddle with European leaders. He zips to Chicago and Las Vegas to meet with mayors. He heads to Wisconsin and New York to talk environmentalism.

And that's just this month and last.

While Salt Lake City's mayor crisscrosses the globe pushing his programs and promoting his city, folks back at City Hall are dealing with more pedestrian fare, where the only trip is down a spreadsheet of revenues and expenditures.

Yes, it's budget time and most City Council members - many of them pondering a run for mayor next year - complain this year's talks are missing something or, more precisely, someone: the mayor.

Some figure Anderson's flights show a lack of interest in running the city. Others say his absence hurts him.

While the mayor can be his own worst enemy - he and the council have a rocky relationship - council members say they prefer bartering with him, not his staff.

"From a negotiating standpoint, there's nobody really there to negotiate with," Councilman Carlton Christensen said, adding that Anderson's initiatives will probably suffer for it. "I hope he doesn't complain or whine if an item he wanted doesn't get approved."

Anderson, who hasn't said whether he will seek a third term next year, insists he cares a "great deal" about the city and his legacy.

"Of course I want to do everything I can to persuade them on matters I think will impact, in dramatic ways, the quality of life in Salt Lake City," he said. "I also realize we've made our case. Now it's in the City Council's court to determine what they're going to do. They jealously guard that independence."

In early May, Anderson presented his budget. He scarcely has been seen in the council chambers since.

But the mayor and his staff note they spent months preparing the budget, which the council must adopt by June 20. The mayor met with department heads. He ranked capital improvement projects for funding - catapulting plans for, say, Pioneer Park up the list. He devised a controversial revision to the city's take-home vehicle policy and helped develop a new health-insurance plan to reduce premiums by $500,000, according to Deputy Mayor Rocky Fluhart.

Anderson "went through every department's suggestions and wish lists and was very, very much engaged," Fluhart said.

Councilwoman Nancy Saxton, who is running for mayor, disagrees. "We don't have an active and engaged mayor. If you're a micromanager, you've really got to be there. You've rendered everybody else insignificant or impotent."

Council members have been frustrated by what they see as incomplete or slow responses from Anderson's staff, in one case threatening to file an open-records request for information.

But Councilman Soren Simonsen sees Anderson's absences differently. The new council member had understood the mayor to be a micromanager and is refreshed that Anderson leaves details to department bosses.

"Even if the mayor were there, I don't know that I would expect a lot of information from him," Simonsen said.

But because budgeting is political and requires negotiation, it would be advantageous for Anderson to be here, said University of Utah political science professor Matthew Burbank.

The U. professor can understand the council's concerns about travel, since much of it is related to environmental causes and not directly to the city. "That is the kind of travel that raises questions about: Is this a primary concern of being a good mayor?"

But Burbank suspects politics are motivating the council members' gripes. "If Mayor Anderson does run again, this provides leverage to say, 'Here's why you shouldn't vote for him because he's been gone.' "

Councilwoman Jill Remington Love doesn't find Anderson's absences from recent council meetings too unusual. After all, the gatherings have been the council's work sessions. And she notes the mayor is quick to respond to her questions with an e-mail or telephone call.

But he hasn't lobbied the council much, according to members. He and his staff recently penned op-ed pieces on property taxes and take-home cars. The mayor also wrote a memo to the council explaining the latter proposal.

Still, his staffers can't, or don't, explain why Anderson made the decisions he did, say some council members. "When he sits down and makes his case for the budget, it's helpful," Love said.

And this year, Anderson's budget included plenty of initiatives. While past years have been lean - with scant or no raises, cuts in positions and other belt tightening - the council sees much to trim from the 2006-07 spending plan, with the mayor calling for a 10.5 percent boost in the city's main fund and 44 more employees, paid for through higher taxes and fees or natural growth in sales tax.

Councilman Eric Jergensen sees the months molding the budget as the most important time of the year and argues Anderson should be here. "He has tossed out a whole series of proposals and then said to the council, 'Here you go. You deal with it,' and then basically goes away. If he's passionate about it, then he ought to be the one providing those explanations, not his employees."

Former Mayor Ted Wilson said he strived to attend budget sessions when he was in charge from 1976 to 1985. "I always felt budget negotiations were the essence of government. This is not a direct criticism of Rocky. He has to decide what he does as mayor. As for me, I tried to be there because subtle things happen. You need votes to get things done."

Love - who calls Anderson's budget "almost irresponsible" without him around to defend it - nonetheless understands the mayor's desire to increase it, since the city's been scrimping for several years. The city needs more planners, more police and more judges and clerks for the Justice Court.

"Sooner or later you just say, 'We're going to have to bite the bullet,' " Love conceded. "If we don't raise property taxes this year, we will in the future. He could make a case for it. He just hasn't."

In an op-ed piece, Anderson - whose recent trips are paid for by taxpayers or sponsoring groups - calls his proposals "prudent and responsible" and maintains they will improve the city's quality of life. He knows heavy-handed lobbying may not help him.

"Some will oppose anything my administration does," Anderson said.

The council did reject Saxton's plan for horse-mounted police patrols in Pioneer Park - an idea the mayor called "loony" - but not because of Anderson's objections. A memo by the police chief killed it.

"We're going to do what we're going to do anyway," said Council Chairman Dave Buhler, who has all but announced he is running for mayor.

Anderson acknowledges he could say no to the jaunts and stay home. But he's not about to. He argues they help the city by enhancing its reputation. And he says his environmental talks inspire others to follow suit with climate-protection measures. In Las Vegas, six of the nonbinding resolutions he sponsored or co-sponsored at the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed, including calls for immigration reform, action in Darfur and more plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Besides, Anderson adds, he is in constant contact with his staff and is a phone call away in an emergency.

"I'm used to working hard," he said. "I want to maximize the impact I have as mayor."

His next stop: Washburn, Wis., June 28 to speak about climate change.

hmay@sltrib.com