Updated 2/16/2009 10:10:59 AM
ATLANTA --- Monday's Atlanta City Council meeting could be interesting, as some public safety officers want to question the council.
Those public safety representatives say the council has to explain about millions of dollars in so-called discretionary money that the council keeps for itself to pay bills and staff.
But council members say those critics have both the facts and figures wrong.
Some City Council members say that the city's accounting software is so bad, they don't trust it and prefer to keep their own budget records off the grid.
According to Councilman C.T. Martin, with the transfer to a news system, "they seem to have lost information or can't keep up with information. We used to get a running balance sheet, but we no longer get that."
Council members routinely keep money on hand to pay for staff and constituent services, like neighborhood clean up and other unforeseen bills.
But with a rash of layoffs, furloughs and cutbacks, some wonder if the council could spend some of their extra money to save jobs.
Jim Daws of the local Firefighters Union told 11Alive Sunday, "Public safety, both fire protection emergency management services and law enforcements, is flat on its back in the city of Atlanta. It's a national scandal, and any money that can be found needs to be directed to those two primary responsibilities."
On Saturday, several Atlanta fire stations were forced to close due to furloughs and sick calls.
Assistant Chief for Atlanta Fire and Rescue Chris Wessels said, "Brown outs always affect city wide coverage because as we respond multiple units to large incidents, there's less units to cover the rest of the city. So anytime we brown out, it's going to have an adverse affect."
But some council members say the idea of two million extra dollars just lying around is way off the mark. They say it would be wise to make sure they keep constituent services going and keep their staff funded.
