In order to enable the Mayor to avoid deficits and to check on performance, each officer, department, board and commission of the City, or other agency receiving a City appropriation shall from time to time as requested by the Mayor prepare and submit to him through the Director of Finance for approval or disapproval an estimate of the amount of money required for each activity or function to be carried on by him or it during the ensuing month, quarter or such other period of the current fiscal year as the Mayor shall prescribe. If such estimate does not meet with the approval of the Mayor, it shall be revised in accordance with the Mayor's direction and resubmitted for approval; but the Mayor shall not reduce the estimates of the City Council or of the Auditing Department without their consent nor the estimates of the Personnel Director and the Civil Service Commission below one-half of one percent of the amount to be expended for compensation for civil service employees.

After the approval of any such estimate, it shall be unlawful for the Director of Finance to approve the expenditure or encumbrance of any appropriation or part thereof except in accordance with such estimate, unless the same be revised with the approval of the Mayor.

ANNOTATION

Sources: The Administrative Code of 1929, Act of April 9, 1929, P.L. 177, Section 604, as amended.

Purposes: 1. Although certain appropriations may have been made to various officers and agencies, the Mayor may order, with exceptions noted hereafter, that the full amount of an authorized appropriation shall not be expended. Such an order would be appropriate if it should appear that revenues will not equal expenditures. To enable the Mayor to decide when an order reducing expenditures is necessary, officers and agencies are required to submit, when requested, estimates of proposed expenditures for stated future periods. The City Council and the Auditing Department are excepted from any order reducing expenditures unless they agree to such an order. See Annotation to Section 2-300. Estimates of the Personnel Director and Civil Service Commission may not be reduced below one-half of one percent of funds to be expended for compensation to civil service employees (see Annotation to Section 2-300), but since an order reducing expenditures of other offices and agencies may reduce the total amount of such compensation, the minimum assured to the Director and Commission may be reduced proportionately.

2. Orders of the Mayor are made enforceable by prohibiting the Director of Finance from approving requisitions which do not conform with such orders. See Sections 6-106 and 8-101.