City Faces More Tough Budget Decisions
COLUMBUS, Ohio—The City of Columbus is faced with more tough financial decisions as low tax revenues continue to trickle into the city.
Columbus leaders are being forced to scale back infrastructure projects. From road repair to building maintenance, many projects that were expected to be completed have been scratched off the list.
The city hoped to fund $239.1 million in capital improvements this year. But instead, just 10 percent of that will be done.
Consider Biking President Jeff Stephens pointed to locations within the city that could use bikeways or improvements to bikeways.
“We are really excited about the direction the city is taking. Quite frankly, we are pretty slow to catch up with many other competitive cities,“ Stephens said.
But the effort to catch up is slowing to a virtual standstill as city council announced its capital improvements budget for 2009.
The bottom line is that they can only fund just slightly more than $24 million in projects this year and only one bikeway project made the list.
Other projects that made the budget include:
• More than $1.2 million for miscellaneous development at Children’s Hospital
• $1.5 million for the Scioto Mile
• $1.3 million for bikeway improvements at the Westbank and Rich Street bridge
• More than $540,000 for Columbus Coated Fabrics
Funding the projects involves council members moving around capital budget funds from various projects that now will now be funded during this budget year—which ends Dec. 31.
The projects include dozens of street resurfacing projects, improvements in the Northland area and replacement of fire apparatus—to name a few.
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Quotes from Coleman the Clown.
“The City must continue to hire more Police Officers…we’ve hired 600 Officers since 2000, and we must continue to grow the force in the next four years.“
Expenditures have exceeded revenues since the year 2000. Why would you hire 600 more officers? Why do you keep trying to sell us a trolley and light rail system?
“We must balance outward growth’s need for streets, parks, sewers, safety forces and trash collection.“
Now you are threatening to take away Police, Fire and Garbage collection?
“While other cities went into deficit spending, we balanced seven budgets without raising taxes or cutting neighborhood services. We must constantly work to make the City of Columbus the most efficient and accountable municipality possible.“
“Columbus has been dipping into its savings to stay afloat the past four years. But city leaders told bond-rating agencies that the city would stop doing that in 2007,” Dorrian said. (June 11, 2006)
“We will continue to implement performance standards and balance budgets just as we’ve done for the past seven years.“
Police Division is larger than ever, with 1,896 sworn officers as of Aug. 10, about 100 more than at the end of 1999. But less than half of the force—822 officers—is on permanent assignment as patrol officers responding to calls for service. (August 31, 2008)
Columbus third among the 25 largest U.S. cities in the amount spent per resident on fire protection. Only Boston and San Francisco spent more per person than Columbus on firefighting last year… (February 2, 2009)
$20 million of 2005 budget went toward union pay increases.
We at the Columbus “We Surround them” are opposed to this tax increase. Join our efforts to fight wasteful spending and reform local government.
http://www.meetup.com/The-Columbus-Ohio-Glenn-Beck-Meetup-Group/
“To fivestarmicheal et al: the mayor has already gone to the unions and obtained a pay cut and he too is affected by this cut.“
It isn’t just the pay… it’s the benefits. THIS is where the bulk of the city’s cash-flow problem arises.
Thus,when Coleman and/or Council speaks of “cutting the budget 30%“, what they are referring to are the non-unionized employees and departments; the union side of the ledger largely hasn’t been touched, let alone, scaled back to any
significant degree.
So agree with me or I’ll get nasty with you and call you names and say you said things you never said? Wow!
Ihvsb
Real quick, this PRIVATE venture you talk about is a nonprofit organization which is FUNDED by the city. You should watch the city council meetings before you spout off. Sorry, maybe you didn’t get you digital converter box in time.
Just look into the PURCHASE of Northland mall and City Center.
Just the facts, not your lies please.
The truth of the matter is that this city is not making Police Officers and firefighters rich. They all don’t live in Bexley or Dublin. With that said, You should point the fingers at the person responsible for SPENDING the taxpayers money. He should be paying for services people use, not empty buildings, trains nobody will use, and parks when all he screams about is how bad things are.
And finally, Ihvsb since you don’t seem to care much for the Safety services you receive, don’t use them. Call somebody else.
Keep in mind the police and fire pension contributions aren’t the only waste of money. The City pays for EVERY city employee’s share of retirement. Again unheard of and TOTALLY unnecessary. If this was put in place instead of pay raises in the 90’s…this needs to be taken away instead of pay cuts in 2009!!
Have someone explain the double dipping program they have going on with the Fire and police after retirement that will piss you off.
Ihvsb
Bikes once were a primary means of transportation the paths are for recreational purposes.Look around this town ,does it look like our citizens are driven by movement outside of the combustion engine?
The purchasing of empty buildings by the Govt. is another problem They always spend 10 times the amount needed to do the job and never make a profit.What business are they trying to attract? Downtown is pathetic lets try to leep companies here instead of inviting new ones.We have enough fast food chains here.
The Mayor went to the unions .The fire fighters went along with his terms and he knew at that point it was a lie.They are still going to get the shaft.
Why don’t you pack up your bags and go to Cali. then you wont have to wait around here for another failed liberal utopia to transpire.
First i want you to get back to city hall and do something instead of typing on here all day.
lhsvb,
LOL yes please check the city’s website to see how much money they brought in for 2008. Where did the money go???????
From $240,000,000 to now only 24,000,000???
Cmon City Hall must think we are all fools…
BTW:
The police officers and firefighters of this city make comparable money compared to other cities in the US. Many of the suburbs’ cops and firefighters make more money than Columbus cops and firefighters.
The pension plan was put into their contracts in place of pay raises back in the 90s.
It does compare to other major cities and in fact many other major cities pay more.
What do you think will happen to this city if Mayor Coleman lays off hundreds of cops and firefighters?
Can you say Detroit or Cleveland???
Do your own research before trying to back our crooked city hall…
Everyone needs to recall Mayor Coleman and vote out the crooked Democrats in City Hall!!!
To unrpentent; Columbus Coated Fabrics was a local company which folded several years ago. The City is making improvements to the site in order to attract more business. The intention of the bike paths is to offer alternative means of transportation.
To fivestarmicheal et al: the mayor has already gone to the unions and obtained a pay cut and he too is affected by this cut.
To mikeformayor; the park downtown is a private venture, the city is not paying for it.
To MadBuckeye: NBC4 doesn’t have to do any investigating on the city budget. It is all out there for everyone to read on the city website.
To getajobubum; the media did cover the city layoffs that have already occurred people just didn’t care about them.
The City pays 75% and 70% of the police and fire employee share of retirement respectively. This does NOT happen anywhere else and is a HUGE waste of money.
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