City’s 2009 Draft Budget Completely Unacceptable
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 10/1/08 @ 10:56 pm - Filed Under City Council, Featured, Local Politics
The administration posted the proposed 2009 budget on their website today and after reviewing it I must say it is completely unacceptable. The budget calls for a mild 0.09% increase in expenses but that doesn’t tell the whole story (remember the budget was flat from 2007 to 2008).
The problem is that starting next year, due to HEA1001, the city will collect $2.1 million less than originally anticipated. And in 2010 the full effect of HEA1001 kicks in and the city will collect $9.5 million less than expected. What this budget does is kick the can down the road and forces a major showdown in 2010. The mayor knows this as his own previous comments confirm what needs to happen:
Mayor Tom Henry on Thursday wrote off increasing local income taxes as a way to help balance the city’s budget, at least for 2008.
Henry told the Northeast Area Partnership, which consists of different neighborhood associations, that he would not ask the City Council to raise the local income taxes this year. Instead, he said the city must find a way to trim $5.8 million from next year’s budget. — A local paper, May 9, 2008
So what happened? Where’s the $5.8 million cut? Where’s any cut? The state legislature phased HEA1001 in for a reason and this budget does not take advantage of that “grace period”. It is fiscally irresponsible to ignore the 2010 challenges and pass this budget without significant changes. We must prepare for next year’s shortfall now.
Let me take a stab at what’s going on here. From day 1 Mayor Henry has tried to fight the effects of HEA1001 by suggesting tax increases instead of spending cuts. If the current budget passes I don’t think there’s any doubt that come next year we will face significant cuts in services. At that time the mayor will push heavily for an increase in the income tax - an idea he floated earlier this year.
What we must do now is cut the budget by 1-2% in order to prepare for 2010. I would suggest that, on average, every department funded by property taxes cut their budget by 1% - that would cut $2.5 Million from the proposed budget. By my calculation, if each department that currently has an increased budget for 2009 were to reduce their budget until it’s flat with the 2008 values. that would save us $1.6 Million of the suggested $2.5 Million.
I think we all understand that cutting the budget is difficult. But if they can’t cut the budget by 1% or 2% this year then how in the world are they going to cut it by 7-9% next year? They won’t of course - they will simply raise taxes. Everyone needs to understand what’s going on here - don’t be duped…
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19 Responses to “City’s 2009 Draft Budget Completely Unacceptable”
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Unless he’s planning on wasting away our City Light Lease Fund. That’d be a huge insult to the future of Fort Wayne to destroy a windfall” like that.
I’m extremely displeased with this administration. (I think many would agree with me.)
Jeff,
October 22nd is the next “Mayor’s night in.” I have the time slot reserved from 5:40 - 5:50.
I will be discussing the City Budget with the Mayor as well as Harrison Square financing.
One of my specific qustions will be whether or not he used my idea I gave to him publicly at the Northwest Area Partnership meeting, when I suggested he draw upon people from outside of his Administration to help him come up with ways to cut the budget. I offered to help myself. (I never heard anything back, though they did take my business card)
Mike Sylvester
Come on Jeff…. Get with the program!!!!
What you are going to see, my guess starting around June or July of next year, the “doom and gloom” show will be rolled out. Much like the scaring the living crap out of the people with this national financial meltdown.
What you are going to hear about the laying off of police and firemen. The closing of fire stations. Every needed basic service will be “hit hard!” The fear card will be played on the public like we have never seen.
Then this “great idea” will be hatched that we tap the City Utility lease money. People will be standing in the streets cheering! City Council members will be all smiles that we avoided this deadly bullet! The Mayor will smile as he tells the media that he does not like the idea but the state has forced his hand to tap the City Utility lease money. That he wanted to save the money for something special but the Gov. forced him to do it.
You will hear the home values dropped, layoffs, and whatever else they can toss on the heap will be offered as other reasons for the shortfalls. We will feel so greatful that the Mayor and City Council bailed us out we will be thrilled to elect them when they run again.
Gosh, I just love them all!!!!!!!
Anyone want to make a bet on the above? I will put up one Power’s Hamburger as my bet. Anyone want to take some of the action?
Neil/JQ,
Using the light lease money won’t work - at least not in the long term. The funding shortfall will be ongoing and thus in about three years the light lease money would be all gone.
My bet is that he’ll go with the more permanent solution of an income tax increase. Or I suppose the light lease fund could be used as a bridge to phase in the income tax over 3 years or something like that.
Either way, all those options suck…
I agree with Jeff. The Mayor is going to seek an income tax increase. This budget just “kicks the can down the road.”
Mike Sylvester
Oh, I agree with the tax increase but they will hit the wall with the down turn in the valuation of homes. Remember the 1% cap. I am not sure where we are on that right now and if one of you know it please post what percentage we are setting at.
Agreed. Income State tax across the board
will increase on the FederaL/State/Local Level thanks to the
New programs…Socialism/Marxism…The New Deal!
City/County no new money for you. All money will be filtered from a budget …the bottom to the top. Wait is that possible, instead folks will be paying money to others from the top filtering down to the mass population.
Welcome to Socialism 101 AMERICA!
.
We would all like Freedom from price controls from the city….can anyone name a few?
I haven’t looked at the details of the spending however - how about a moratorium on all “consultant” spend for 2009. That oughta trim about 10% off of the top, right?! :)
And p.s. in hard times - mayors and aides don’t go off to any boondoggle gatherings/seminars/conferences either.
Jeff:
I agree that using the light lease fund won’t work. That’s exactly why I said it would be an insult to waste it away for the budget.
I don’t see how he plans on making HUGE cuts next year instead of phasing them in?
Why is anyone surprised? Was anyone expecting an innovative approach, leadership and decisive action?
The only decisions made to date by the administration has been to destroy the public safety academy and move Ozzie Mitson to another position in the adminstration.
He has to be running out of leftover ribbon cuttings to attend, and accomplishments to preside over. He needs to do SOMETHING soon or he will continue to coast into oblivion, hands firmly on the wheel, and the rest of us in the back seat.
I believe the Mayor would do well to diversify the gene pool and get some outside help/advice from local professionals, like Mike, on how to address some of the challenges. Perhaps meeting with the new Deputy Mayor might be more productive.
[...] reviewing the awful budget submitted by the mayor, I could only conclude that next year he will push for an increase in the income tax to make up for [...]
Where in this budget are the multi-millions of savings that the December 30, 2007 purchase order to King Richard’s private company was to provide Fort Wayne? Is anyone going to audit compliance with the promises made? Tom Smith? Mitch Harper? Liz Brown? Anybody?
I took a look at the 2009 City Proposed Budget, what’s interesting is looking at the 2008 and 2007 approved Budget comparisons first.
link: http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/images/stories/finance/controller/files/BIB%2008%20Web%20Version.pdf
Look at the line item expense comparisons 2007, 2008 Redevelopment % change 19.60%, Fleet Contract
17.98%, Mayor 17.75%. Proposed 2009 Budget expense
Police Merit 747.00% (is this for real? it’s on the budget) Fleet Cost 76.51% and Mayor’s expense up 5.06%.
The tax rate increase proposed from .99 to 1.33 is because assessed value of property has shriveled they are running budget deficeits.
Ask the Mayor to place a freeze on spending.
Slash costs by reducing spending that are eating away at our budget.
Looks like line items of most expense are the Parks N Rec, Police, and Communications.
There must be some ways to be more frugal in those departments.
The police merit is an every other year cost item. Look back at 2007. I believe it is for the testing service for officers to set scores for merit ranking. It is an every two year event.
Worked for Bush/Chaney didn’t it?
“The fear card will be played on the public like we have never seen.”
John,
Actually it unfortunately did work for Bush/Cheney.
And on the recent 700 billion dollar “bailout” it worked for Pelosi/Reid as well when they pushed this “bailout” through the Democratic House and Senate.
And yes, my guess is it will be used by some in Fort Wayne in their attempt to raise income taxes rather then cut spending.
Mike Sylvester
Mike:
Quite right. Both parties in the Washington “Resuce/Bailout” and prior issues have been abject failures. But….. Where do we go from here? Is it “Gloom and Doom”, “Remove and Replace” or sit back and take another hosing?
[...] Million in 2009 Budget Cuts. Facing a massive shortfall over the next two years, mayor Henry proposed a flat budget but no cuts. In fact the mayor’s sole idea was to hope that the state legislature changed the [...]