This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 30, 3012 -St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley isn't on the ballot this year. But that doesn't mean he's not a central focus of a county-level campaign.
St. Louis County Councilman Steve Stenger, D-Affton, has emphasized his opposition to the Democratic chief executive during his campaign for re-election.
Stenger and Republican Tony Pousosa are locked in a battle for the 6th District seat, which includes a swath of unincorporated south St. Louis County considered evenly divided between the two major parties.
Stenger's campaign mailers and website showcase his disagreements with Dooley, which he said shows that he'll stand up for his district on important issues. It's the type of strategy that's bred speculation that Stenger will challenge Dooley for the county executive's office in two years.
When asked whether Stenger's campaign rhetoric rankled him, Dooley said on Monday there is no elected official that is going to agree on 100 percent on anything anybody does.
There are things where I might disagree with the governor I may disagree with the president, Dooley said. Nobody's got 100 percent. That's not where we live in the real world. Because somebody opposed me on some matter, that's their prerogative. They're elected officials as well."
Dooley, by the way, left no doubt who he was rooting for the race, which is critical for Republicans to have any chance of taking control of the council.
I want Democrats to win of course, Dooley said. I'm for Democrats. Democrats I think are the way to go. They're about working men and women of this community and the middle class.
As Stenger noted, the two aren't always at odds. Stenger voted with the four other Democrats on the council to implement a foreclosure mediation program, which Dooley strongly supported.
No hints on budget
Dooley is set to reveal next year's budget later this week. He hasn't provided any hints over the last few weeks on its contents.
The county's gained considerable attention last year when Dooley proposed deep cuts to the county's parks. Dooley ultimately changed course, but the episode showcased how different the process is compared to other legislative bodies.
Currently, the county executive's office prepares the budget and the council can only approve or disapprove the entire proposal. While council members can prompt the executive to make changes, they cannot alter individual line items in a similar manner to the U.S. Congress or the Missouri General Assembly.
That arrangement ostensibly gives the county executive the upper hand in crafting a budget, since it could take a substantial disagreement for force alterations.
Both Stenger and Pousosa were asked by the Beacon whether the county's charter should be amended to provide council members with more flexibility to alter the budget.
Pousosa said giving the councilmembers more say is giving the people back in those council districts more say as to what actually goes in there.
It just doesn't work for the people, Pousosa said. I just disagree with County Executive Dooley as far as wanting a tax increase and if you don't do you're going to close parks. I mean, come on. I can say that there definitely needs to be a change that gives more say to what the people want. So if I'm elected, I can go back to the 6th District constituency and say 'look, we've got a budget coming up what things do you want to see cut from the budget?'
Stenger said it would be "helpful" for council members to make amendments or change line items of a budget. But he noted that last year showcased how the council can exert influence over the process.
I think last year was sort of a faceoff between the council and the county executive. And at the end of the day, we were not going to approve his budget as it was proposed, Stenger said. And to that extraordinary power that the county executive has, there is a balance and a check. And that check and balance is the council could say 'we're not approving your budget.' I think the county executive would have been the first county executive in recent memory that would not have had his budget approved. And, that in and of itself, that's the power of the council.
But Stenger said that sort of mentality can only go so far. For instance, he said it would be harder to convince other councilmembers to vote down the budget for smaller disagreement. He said, for instance, he would have liked to change the budget to reduce Dooley's staff - especially when other county positions were being eliminated.
"I would have liked to have been able to line item that and say 'if you're going to contemplate firing 20 career employees, then you've got to cut your staff,'" said Stenger, adding under the current process he would have to get three other councilmembers to threaten to defeat the budget to make such a change.
Stenger said that Pousosa has advocated eliminating "patronage hires." But fulfilling that promise, he said, could be difficult under the current system.
"He'd three other members of the council to go along with him and say 'we're not going to approve the budget if you have those political hires in it,'" Stenger said. "Well, I couldn't gather three other council members to withhold the approval of the budget on that basis. And that [highlights] one of the inherent structural issues that we have. He would need to get three other members and he's not going to have them. Although he would like to do that and that's certainly something I would like to do too it's a virtual impossibility."
For his part, Dooley isn't enthused about making big changes to the county budget process.
The county council has every opportunity to vote it up or vote it down, said Dooley earlier this week. I'm for keeping it transparent. My budget has always been transparent. This is my ninth year and they've all been above board and out there for everyone to look at. And we have budget meetings and we meet with the council.
Actually, we go beyond what we need to do to make it transparent, he added. On November 1st, everybody will see what's in the budget.
Stenger said that expanding the council's powers over the budget process would be a "major, massive step." And he said Dooley could hypothetically veto any ballot item that could make those changes.
"When he made a major action that was making a major move toward doing what everybody agrees would have been significant damage to our county, the council was able to stop him. In that regard, our process worked," Stenger said. "Certainly he can do small things that we don't like. But even with those, if we really didn't like them, there are other things that we could do politically and as part of the process. We could block certain things that he wants."
"There's certainly enough in the realm of other items that we approve on a regular basis that we could just simply not approve," he added.
