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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Reader Reactions
everybody asked to give back on wages &benefits;.does that include the mayor,city council,&all;higher ciy,county,state jobs [politicially appointed jobs]
Folks, the city does not pay 100% of the police officers pension. I have to go to work or I would try to find the figures for you. Those pension contributions the city makes were part of contracts negotiated where the union took the contributions to the pension instead of salary.
I don’t think the $59,000 number is correct either. It’s more like $68,000 for the officer at his top pay range.
Mikeformayor, the name pretty much suggests we shouldn’t trust anything you say.
A Commander of the Columbus City Police told me uniformed officers are doing tasks that used to be done by non-union, non-uniformed officers. Employees which were costing the city a fraction of a sworn officer doing the same task.
The 33% of city workers Coleman cut? They were doing the clerical task our highly paid officers are now doing. Coleman made cuts… he cut the part-time and non-union people who were getting paid the least. Because our Mayor does not have the spine to confront the City Unions. The union workers who are receiving better benefits then most people in the private sector.
His cuts look good on paper, but they ended up costing the city more money.
The paperwork sworn officers are being saddled with is not just “police reports”. Sworn officers are going into overtime ordering office supplies and other jobs a clerical worker could do.
I’m not blaming just the Police, I am blaming the Mayor and City Council who are running this city into the ground.
Since the year 2000 expenditures have exceeded revenues and Coleman has been filling the gaps with money from the rainy day fund. The past nine years Coleman could have been scaling back pension and insurance benefits for 5,700 employees.
A five year officer makes $59,000 a year, which is much higher then the national average. I value Police officers, but at what costs? Should a police officer be making more money then a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Why is channel 4 only showing the firefighter and police officer cuts part of the story. Shouldn’t they be asking the city some tougher questions about where they can tighten there belts? It seems like Channel 4 is using scare tactics in the reporting of this story.
On the other hand is it really fair for voters of Columbus, most of whom don’t work in the city, to vote to take more money from the people who come in everyday to work, pay sales taxes and outrageous parking fees already to shell out more!
It’s amazing how foolish most residents of the city are. They vote progressive liberals in droves, watch the city fall apart and go bankrupt, take boatloads of $$$ from the supreme leader in D.C.,spend that like drunkin sailors (sorry to the good men and women of the Navy), then use scare tactics to pick pocket the workers for more.
It has been proven time and time again that when you raise taxes reciepts go up in the short term but ultimately fall to lower amounts in real dollars than before the increase.
My question is this:
The city of Columbus took in just over $600,000,000 in income tax last year, correct?
25% of it goes to the Capital Improvement fund according to the city code???
That’s the LAW according to the city code right???
What happened to the $240,000,000 Million?????
Where is the rest of the money?????????
They collected it last year right?
Where is the 2008 tax money?
Hey NBC4 get a clue!!!
DO SOME REAL INVESTIGATIVE WORK AND FIND OUT WHERE THE MONEY WENT????
EVERYONE NEEDS TO GO TO CITY HALL AND DEMAND CITY HALL AND THE MAYOR STEP DOWN AND STOP PLAYING WITH OUR CITY’S FUTURE!
I SPEAK FOR THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE OUTRAGED BY THE DOWNRIGHT MISUSE AND THEFT GOING ON AT CITY HALL.
SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE!
And they spent the surplus millions on????
Sorry Mr. Mayor, but my family is forced by economic necessities to live within our means. Once in a great while we are forced to exceed our budget, auto repairs and medical emergencies do happen. We can’t go to anyone else and tell them we need money, it’s just US. We don’t live in your world of the bottomless pit of money - you know, the TAXPAYERS. You and your idiot city council need to get your stinking fingers OUT of my wallet, it’s pretty much empty as it is. Everything is costing more now, gas and electric, water, gasoline, food, the things that people need to just stay alive and get to work and back. I have no more to give, and I sure as he11 won’t be giving any more to you and your lackeys if my vote means anything at all. You can cry “We’re poor” all you want, I really don’t care anymore. I’m tapped out and you’ve not shown me anything to prove to me that I should make an extra effort to give you any more than what I already give. So you go on with your bad self and cut safety services, when the murders increase the blood will be on your hands. And the smell from that next cookout you have? That’ll be the smell of people roasting in a burning house. Go for it Mike, you’re the MAN…
wow fivestarmichael you sure are a winner. Do you research any of you material or do you just type? Police Officers DO NOT empty parking meters…..Police Officers do file out paperwork, buts= its only after someone in this great city actually feels like they need HELP and Call the police. The paperwork is just one of the ways the police department HELPS the citizens of Columbus when they need HELP. I hope you never need something after August 4th. But then again you would still just blame the police. Then there’s the phones. Just part of their JOBS. Get over it…........
You should put blame where blame is due. I’m sure the Police Dept is not trying to run a train down the middle of High St. nor are they trying to build a park in the middle of downtown while this great city is in FINANCIAL RUIN….
A Police officer who has worked 5 years earns $59,000 a year, with benefits, 100% of pension paid by the city, the officer cost Columbus $119,000.
Get really mad when you see one of these officers emptying a parking meter or filing paperwork or answering phones.
Coleman fired the part-time, non-union employees who were doing these tasks.
The same benefits apply to 5,700 city employees. This is where your money is going. Yet Coleman keeps finding other places to cut the budget.
What a coward! He won’t stand up to the unions and re-negotiate their contracts, but he asks us to pony up more money to pay for outrageous benefits.
Columbus needs new leadership.
Does it ever end?
The scioto is nice but I have never seen anybody there except for Geese.
Forget the bike trails ride in your neighborhood like ever kid seems to be ok with and does the city own Columbus coated fabrics? If it does why?
$1.3 million for a single bikeway improvement at one bridge?
My goodness, that’s a lot of money!
How in the world do they justify such extravagance?
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