Right, and if you look at the
2012 Operating Budget table, you'll see that this claim comes from the comparison of the Total Levy Operating Budget, which notes a reduction from the 2011 budget figure it offers of 0.2%. If you think this a one-fifth of one percent reduction is significant, you're welcome to tout that figure as gospel.
However, when one does an apples-to-apples comparison, that decrease actually
vanishes. The number the 2012 table gives for the 2011 approved budget is 9,409,056.4, but the number given in the equivalent
2011 budget table is 9,382,869.1. This figure is actually less than the comparable 2012 figure of 9,389,954.2, meaning that, by this comparison, the 2012 budget was actually
$7 million more than the exactly comparable 2011 amount. And things get even dicier when we look at the
2013 budget table, which has the 2012 budget at 9,417,784.7, higher than the number in the 2012 table, and certainly higher than either figure for the comparable 2011 amount. In other words, those comparisons show an
increase in 2012, and
not a decline.
(Of course, you can see this as well in the
listed budget summaries that I linked to originally -- 2011 says that that "the 2011 tax supported 2011 Operating Budget is $9.383 billion", and 2012 states that "City Council approved a balanced tax-supported 2012 Operating Budget of $9.4 billion". By any math I do, 9.4 is
bigger than 9.383, not smaller.)
That 2013 table also has something interesting: by the same comparison in 2012 that claimed a budget decline, the 2013 numbers show an
increase from 2012 by, yep, 0.2%.
Now, I am not an accountant, and there may things I'm missing here. But on a straightforward reading of the figures, it sure seems to me that the claim "He did put out a budget smaller than the year before" is a) at best only technically true and represents no major decline, b) is incorrect when later figures are used and direct apples-to-apples comparisons are made, which themselves show an
increase in 2012, and c) is wrong when one looks at this year, where there was an increase that matched percentage-wise the best claim for a decrease the year previous.
Anyone with a greater understanding of city finances is welcome to correct me.