Budget Cuts - Part 1
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 2/20/08 @ 1:48 am - Filed Under City Council, Featured
I’ve decided to start a series of posts that will look at ways the city could cut the budget in order to deal with the shortages due to property tax caps that will inevitably be enacted by the state legislature. I don’t think there’s a simple solution to the problem (other than to raise the income tax) and I think this upcoming series of posts will illustrate that point. I certainly don’t have all the answers but I want to throw some ideas out there in order to stimulate discussion. On more than one occasion I’ve heard that “citizens will have to decide what services they want cut”. Really? How is that discussion going to take place? I suppose this is a start - feel free to give your comments/suggestions/ideas.
I’ve copied the total expenses from the various 2006-2008 department budgets into an excel spreadsheet which you can download here. The first thing you’ll notice is that the public safety departments make up a huge chunk of the city’s budget and any attempt to cut upwards of $10 Million will need to deal with that.
Having said that, two departments have been out of control over the last two budget cycles and these are the Redevelopment Department and the Mayor’s Office. Both have an increase of 48% over the last two years. The redevelopment department is the most troubling considering their head count has remained steady but their salary increases have been 18.8% and 21% each of the last two years. This salary increase is significantly more than all the other departments.
The mayor’s office budget has spiked because of additional staff. In 2007 they added 3 City Service Specialists and then in 2008 they added 3 additional City Service Specialists for a total of 6. This has caused the salary expense to increase by 19% per year each of the last 2 years. Again this significantly higher than other departments.
At this point I think it’s important to note that eliminating these large salary increases would still only be a drop in the bucket towards $10 Million. Next time we’ll start looking at specific cuts and what savings would come from them…
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9 Responses to “Budget Cuts - Part 1”
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I find it interesting that most voters I talk to feel that Government is too large and interferes in too many aspects of our lives. This is proven in poll after poll. According to most polls I have seen 2/3 - 3/4 of all voters think our Government is too large.
That being said; it has proven almost impossible to cut Government programs or services; especially at the Federal level.
Fort Wayne clearly needs to decrease the size of the City Government; I think the best way to downsize is to implement a hiring freeze and downsize by attrition. The cuts needed are impossible without decreasing the number of City employees.
I definately feel that Public Safety is important; however, it is such a large portion of the budget that I feel that there need to be cuts in those departments as well.
Mike Sylvester
P.S. The City will also need to reach outside of itself to identify the cuts needed.
Another idea would be to investigate exactly what function some of these agencies perform and then determine whether they are successful or not.
A good one to start with is Metroploitan Human Relations. This group is slated to spend $661,989
in 2008.
I operate a small business in Fort Wayne and I do not even know what this organization does.
I think orgnaizations like this would be a good place to start.
Mike Sylvester
Hopefully with the departure of Talarico and Crawford, to quote Bill Clinton circa 1992, the era of big government is over.
Crawford was diligent about pouring over the budget looking for areas to cut. In fact he and Pape were the authors of the ordinance to cut the levy last year…
Mike,
Here’s an excerpt from their 2008 budget. You can see their goals and more here:
Also, Lockwood Marine is the commission chair so you could ask him for more info as well…
Crawford may have been diligent about looking for budget cuts. All I know is that when there was increased regulation, when the role of government was sought to be expanded, when government was asked to solve a problem best left to the free market system, Crawford was there.
So once a year he questioned why the Street Department needed 100 Number 2 pencils when 97 would do just fine. Big deal. Meanwhile, we have to man a smoker’s tip line so bar owners can snitch on each other.
So we are spending nearly $700,000 per year to ensure that we “administer and enforce” anti-discrimination legislation within the territorial boundaries of the City of Fort Wayne.
Sounds like a good place to start cutting wasteful spending to me…
Does New Haven have an orgnaization like this? Does Huntertown have an organization like this?
Give me a break; disband it and save the taxpayers almost $700,000 per year.
Mike Sylvester
[...] Part 1 I briefly talked about the out-of-control spending coming from the Redevelopment department and the [...]
On the Metropolitan Human Relations Commission:
Probably most (if not all) of the city’s anti-discrimination laws duplicate state and/or federal laws. That means there are already agencies at the state and federal level that are charged with enforcing them. Why do we need to duplicate this service at the local level?
On last years ordinance to cut the levy:
This did not save any money! They removed an item from the budget that never was being expended in the first place. They attempted to spin this as a savings to the taxpayer, without cutting services. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
Maybe somebody should look into how much overtime pay is spent on police and fire officers. If it’s a lot, maybe those positions shouldn’t have been cut after all. The reduced overtime payments probably would have more than paid for the extra officers.