Fleming: Mayor cannot veto Council hiring a budget analyst

Pensacola attorney Ed Fleming reviewed Mayor Ashton Hayward’s veto of the Pensacola City Council hiring a budget analyst. His client shared that opinion with Inweekly.

According to Fleming, Mayor Hayward did not have the authority to veto “the City Council’s administration of a duly-enacted ordinance addressing a power expressly, and exclusively, granted by the Charter.”

The ordinance that created the budget analyst position in 2016 was expressly authorized by Article IV, Section 4.02(a)(6) of the City Charter.

Fleming stated, “The Mayor has no authority to obstruct the City Council’s efforts to implement the duly-enacted ordinance.”

He compared the analyst position, which would directly work for the City Council, to the Congressional Budget Office, which works for and reports to Congress.

“The fact that the President has direction over the Treasury Department does not negate the right of Congress to have an independent budget analyst,” said Fleming. “The same is equally true with the City of Pensacola.”

He said that did not believe any Court would reach the conclusion that the Mayor can nullify the “Charter’s express provisions for the right of the City Council to have an independent budget analyst.”

The City Council meet on Monday to discuss whether it will override Hayward’s veto.