City Budget Thoughts
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 10/28/09 @ 9:00 pm - Filed Under City Council, Featured
The city budget was passed by council last not a 5-4 vote with councilmembers Didier, Harper, Pape, Shoaff and Bender voting for it and members Smith, Goldner, Hines and Brown against it. Quite an a strange pairing if you ask me.
There was ~$460k cut from the administration’s proposed budget. The bulk of this was reducing city employees’ raise from 1.5% to 1%. They also voted to eliminate two neighborhood area advocate positions as well as their own part-time research assistant.
In the end I don’t think this budget cut nearly enough considering the revenue reductions we’re going to see over the next 2 years. I think giving city employees a raise in this economic climate is an outrage but given the lack of support for serious cuts the 1% compromise was the best council could do.
The council’s plan seems to be to spend down a portion of the city’s $23 million in cash reserves once the revenue starts declining. I certainly applaud that but there’s still a chance there will be major structural deficits remaining that can only be addressed through cuts and/or a tax increase. Furthermore, I don’t believe this administration will ever be willing to spend down a significant amount of those cash reserves. City controller Pat Roller is too influential and it makes her job much easier to maintain them so I’ll believe it when I see it.
Remember the horrors that we were all going to experience by cutting so much from last year’s budget? Did anyone even notice? Now some of this is due to the diligence of city employees who are doing more with less. But let’s be honest too, some of this is built-in fluff that always makes up a portion of any budget. Seeing how they are spending our money at time when we all need it the most I think the prudent decision would be to continue making cuts until we hit our pain threshold.
Do we really need consultants for gambling and I&M studies and whatever else is getting paid that we don’t know about? Can the city live with less tree trimming and leaf pickup and audit department? Do we need to spend millions of dollars in interest and bond fees for every project that comes along? Does our mayor need to make more money than every other mayor in the state - are we really buying any value for that?
I guess you know you came to a good compromise when nobody is happy. City employees, the mayor, taxpayers - I doubt anyone is too thrilled with this budget…
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2 Responses to “City Budget Thoughts”
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Jeff, I agree with you. With unemployment at 10% based on those who receive unemployment benefits and over 20% when you count those who have used up benefits and stopped looking for work, the Fort Wayne City Council is out of touch with reality.
They are spending as if there is no problem. The first thing people do when they are laid off, is to cut back. They cut back 30% or more. They eliminate cable, cell phones, internet, eating out and more. Yet this City Council proposes a 1% pay raise. I do not know of any area businesses that are increasing wages, but many have cut hours, wages and benefits.
Jeff,
I agree that last year the City did a good job of cutting wasteful spending.
I also agree that they did a poor job this year. Please realize that statistically speaking state and local government revenues on average take 3-4 years to recover from a recession. If in fact the recession just ended in the third quarter of 2009 then revenues will likely not recover until 2012… There clearly should not have been an increase in pay of any kind!
Mike