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Asked by Salt Lake City officials to approve funds that the administration has already spent, the Salt Lake City Council took a stern, borderline parental tone Tuesday.
"I am very much inclined to say that any shortfall is going to have to be absorbed by the departments," said Councilwoman Lisa Adams, who likened it to when a daughter spent more than Adams had approved to decorate her dorm room.
Her daughter was made to pay back the difference, Adams said.
The city administration's spree was detailed in a 2016-17 budget amendment for $213,000 to reimburse over-budget costs for homeless services and $94,000 the city spent to truck green waste to the landfill.
Councilwoman Erin Mendenhall said the administration had strayed into the policy realm by spending that money without first getting council approval.
Added Councilman Derek Kitchen: "It feels really disrespectful to our role as policymakers."
Midway through hearings on next year's budget, council members have shown few cards regarding its highlights, which include a property tax increase for libraries, rate increases for sewer and water, and the folding of the Rose Park Golf Course into the general fund.
But their questions Tuesday came fast and, if not furious, with a note of frustration.
"I feel like what we are seeing is what happens when you fire all the experience and a year later you're trying to figure out how to make it work," Adams said, suggesting — as council members frequently have — that Mayor Jackie Biskupski erred in calling for and accepting the resignations of longtime city appointees shortly after taking office.
On Tuesday, council members pressed the administration on familiar fronts, like its responsiveness to council staff queries — Adams complained about an email received mid-discussion — and its struggles to fill open posts.
When Community and Neighborhoods Director Mike Reberg told council members on Tuesday that the city has declined to hire three people who interviewed to be transportation director — a post unfilled for nearly a year — Kitchen and Councilman James Rogers pounced, asking what had happened to an incoming candidate Reberg had told them about earlier this year.
"Did that interview come in?" Rogers asked.
"That interview did not come in," Reberg said.
Reberg's turn on the hot seat also saw him grilled for what council members said was scant evidence that recommendations from a building services audit are reflected in the mayor's proposed budget.
Reberg said the audit — which said Salt Lake City's building services should strive to be more customer focused — was being used as a guide, but that some suggestions "don't make as much sense as the audit suggests."
"We paid for [the audit], we think they're good suggestions and we want to see them implemented," Adams said. "I kind of feel like I gave you a great gift and I went over to your house the next week and saw it under the table and your dog was sitting on it."
Later, Adams treated Salt Lake City Public Services Director Lisa Shaffer to a slideshow of the road damage Adams observed on what she said was a five-minute walk through her neighborhood.
"Are we in a third-world country? Or are we in Salt Lake City?" asked Adams, who wants to explore financial options to improve Salt Lake City's streets — two-thirds of which are rated as "poor" — while Biskupski pleads for financial restraint.
To Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown, she wondered about the cost of Biskupski's personal security detail.
He would get that information, he told her.
Adams said it also came as news to her that Rep. Sandra Hollins, D-Salt Lake City, had recently been hired as the city's homeless services coordinator, though Hollins' hire was warmly received by the council.
A licensed social worker who managed the homeless outreach program for Volunteers of America, Hollins is a "fabulous" choice, Mendenhall said. "The best hire you could find for that position."
Said Reberg after briefing the council: "She knows this issue, she knows the players, she knows the outreach down in that community. She also happens to be a legislator and will have an articulate voice for the need for state funding."
Hollins joins a staff rich in legislative experience. Not only is Biskupski a former representative, but so are Deputy Chief of Staff David Litvack, Community Relations Director Jennifer Seelig and newly hired community liaison Tim Cosgrove.
Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, has been a community program manager for the city's youth and family division since before Biskupski took office.
Reached by phone Tuesday, Hollins said she hopes to help people understand the many complex problems represented in the homeless community.
Many individuals, she said, "want the same thing that you and I want. They want to be able to work, they want to be able to provide for themselves, they want to be able to provide for their children. They want a safe community to live in."
"There are some of us, there but for the grace of God, [might be] homeless."
Twitter: @matthew_piper