Kaylee McGhee/Collegian
The Hillsdale City Council decided to revise its guidelines concerning council committee size limits, despite resultant budget hikes, at a Sept. 19 meeting.
Committees, which are legislative sub-groups composed of city councilmen, could be composed of only three members up to this point. The new guidelines allow for up to four members on a committee and grant the mayor the ability to preside over or join his choice of committees.
Each person added to any given committee will result in a spending increase for the city council. In addition, the increased body count on each committee will potentially alter their effectiveness, as committees can lawfully make decisions only when over half of their members are present at a meeting.
Councilman Bruce Sharp said his personal experience with committees in the past does not make him optimistic that the new guidelines will facilitate more productive decision making.
“I’m on two committees, and there’s three council members on both of these committees. [At] over half the meetings we’ve had, we’ve been lucky to have two council members there,” he said. “If we raise the limit to four council members, does that mean if only two show up we can’t have a meeting? That concerns me.”
With regard to the spending increases, Sharp said the council’s decision goes against its purpose as an entity.
“We’re talking about trying to save costs for the city, and it’s going to cost us 25 percent more for these meetings. We’re contradicting what we’re saying we’re doing here,” he said.
Despite Sharp’s objections, the city council decided to raise the number of possible committee members per committee to four, with the option of mayoral involvement.
Councilman Matthew Bell said this move will help the council become a more effective body, but added he worries the new committee guidelines may still be too constrictive.
“I just worry that we’re limiting ourselves to four,” Bell said. “There may be a need in the future to put five or more people on a project if it is really big. I think we need to remove the limit, so we don’t run into this problem again in six months.”
Amid the council’s disagreement, Mayor Scott Sessions was a proponent of increased committee sizes due to the opportunity for mayoral involvement. Sessions said that although previous mayors have been unable to take part in committee decisions actively, he wants the ability to do so.
“As long as we’re adding up the amount of councilmembers on there, I’d like to be a part of it,” he said.