It’s a pretty well known fact that some politicians “exaggerate” from time to time, especially about how hard and long they work for their constituents.

But it was exaggeration on steroids Monday night at city hall.

During the discussion on the city budget, several members of the common council mentioned that they had spent 13 hours in budget deliberations.

While it may have felt that way to some, the truth of the matter is that the members of the city council’s “committee of the whole” didn’t meet as a group anywhere near 13 hours on the budget this year.

The record clearly shows that they actually deliberated less than seven hours on the budget proposal.

The committee first met on Thursday night, May 17, for the first round of individual departmental budget conferences.

That session lasted 1 hour and 54 minutes.

The second budget session was held on Saturday morning, May 19.

It lasted 4 hours and 12 seconds.

In total, that’s officially 6 hours and 6 seconds of actual “budget deliberations”.

And yes, it’s true that the Councillors, along with the aldermen, also      had to attend a joint convention and public hearing on the proposed budget,       as required by the new city charter, on Tuesday night, May 29.

It was a 30 minute session.

That brings the time spend on city hall “budget deliberations” this year to a grand total of 6 hours and 36 seconds.

It may have seemed “grueling” to some, but it certainly wasn’t 13 hours worth of work.