The Lawrence mayor and councilors are arguing over the budget again

Another budget season, another year of conflict between the Lawrence Common Council and Mayor Deb Whitfield.

And this time, an independent financial advisor hired by the council decided to back out, alleging a “hostile” situation in the city.

Tensions rose last year when the council received a petition from residents accusing Whitfield’s administration of misusing taxpayer dollars and withholding financial documents. Still, councilors voted unanimously to adopt the $28 million budget last year despite concerns about the city’s financial picture.

Now, councilors are accusing the Democratic mayor of not being transparent about the 2026 budget. They are especially concerned they won’t have enough time to review Whitfield’s proposals.

The Whitfield administration told councilors the budget will be presented Sept. 30. That would give councilors about a month.

“The council should not be in this predicament,” President Betty Robinson, Democrat, said at a Sept. 17 council meeting. “However, it was a choice of the administration to not give this council the tools needed to get their job done.”

Through a spokesperson, Whitfield did not respond to Mirror Indy’s questions before publication.

To assist with navigating this year’s budget season, the council hired an independent financial advisor, Stone Municipal Group.

“This time, we wanted to have someone that we could go to to ask our questions that would be able to answer them, because last year, we were basically forced into passing a budget that a lot of us weren’t comfortable with and we weren’t going to let that happen this year,” said Zach Cramer, a Democrat who serves as vice president on the council.
 

But that process has also resulted in conflict between the council and mayor.

After the council voted to approve the contract in July, Whitfield never signed the paperwork. Cramer said the council believed that amounted to a veto, which the council had the authority to override. So they voted to do so on Aug. 4.

At that same council meeting, though, Whitfield’s deputy chief of staff, Greg Goodnight, said the contract was not vetoed but invalid due to statutory violations. Goodnight said the contract lacked required legal clauses and had procedural errors.

Following that meeting, Cramer said councilors requested information from the city’s controller. A new controller had taken office in August, and Cramer said no councilors have met with her.

“She didn’t reply to literally anything from any of us, until we had our lawyer reach out to the administration’s lawyer,” Cramer said.

Alleged incident with mayor

Stone Municipal Group, meanwhile, requested access to a system that tracks budget information and financial documents, Cramer said. But he said that request was denied.

Then on Sept. 11, Stone Municipal Group withdrew its offer to work with the council. In an email obtained by Mirror Indy, the financial advisor group referenced an alleged incident where Whitfield approached another client of the firm and “spoke as though she wanted to act in a bad or malicious way toward the firm.”
 

It is unclear what the incident was. Stone Municipal Group did not respond to Mirror Indy’s interview request. Whitfield did not respond to Mirror Indy’s questions about this alleged incident before publication.

But in a Sept. 17 letter to Robinson obtained by Mirror Indy, Whitfield wrote that Cramer had informed her “several weeks ago” that Stone Municipal Group was no longer interested in serving as an advisor.

“At that time, there was no suggestion that the decision was connected to any alleged discussion between me and a mystery client of Stone Municipal Group,” Whitfield wrote.

Cramer said the mayor’s comments are untrue.

“No such statement was ever made,” Cramer said in a text to Mirror Indy on Sept. 18. “The firm emailed us a few weeks ago that they had reservations, but we were able to continue working together up until this past week.”

Mayor Whitfield’s letter

In the letter, Whitfield also said she was “deeply disappointed to see elected officials I respect drawn into political theatrics rather than focusing on the real work city of Lawrence residents elected us to do.”

The letter also mentions a meeting scheduled for Sept. 12 between the Whitfield administration, the city’s controller, the city’s municipal advisor and council leadership.

That meeting did not happen after council leadership decided not to attend.
 

When asked about the canceled meeting, Robinson told Mirror Indy she would rather have these discussions held at public meetings in front of the full council and residents.

“All the councilors have questions,” Robinson said. “Why not meet with the council as a whole? Why does all this stuff have to be in secret?”

What happens next?

Cramer said there is not much the council can do until the members receive the proposed budget on Sept. 30.

Moving forward, he wants the council and the administration to work together.

“I’m not actively trying to look for fraud,” Cramer said. “I’m not trying to make the administration look bad. I’m just trying to serve my constituents in the best way possible.”

A correction was made on Sept. 19, 2025: A previous version of this story misstated the amount of last year’s budget.

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Mirror Indy reporter Darian Benson covers east Indianapolis. Contact her at 317-397-7262 or darian.benson@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @HelloImDarian or on Bluesky @darianbenson.bsky.social.