The city council is going into this week’s round of budget hearings with another weapon in its arsenal.
City clerk-treasurer David Culp hired Curt Coonrod, an Indianapolis-based certified public accountant, to do an fiscal projection ooking at the city’s finances through 2016.
The “project,” as it was called by Coonrod and council members Monday night, essentially attempts to look at cash flows — money in, money out — and predict what financial shape the city will be in four years from now.
But there was little, if anything, new in Coonrod’s presentation for council members.
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He predicts that, should the city keep spending the way it’s been spending, that there won’t be any money left in just two years.
Coonrod and Culp urged the council to reconsider increasing the tax rate associated with the Cumulative Capital Development Fund, which historically generated money for one-time capital improvement expenditures.
Culp pointed out weeks ago that the rate could be raised to generate possibly as much as $150,000 a year, tripling what it brings in at its current rate.
But the council members voted it down, worried about the effect it could have on local taxpayers.
Mayor Joe Yochum said little about the proposed hike but said should the council ever decided to do so, he would like to see the money spent only on street repairs.
Coonrod called increasing the CCD rate “a reasonable decision from a fiscal standpoint.”
Brown, who did not attend the council meeting where the council voted the rate hike down, said Monday night the fiscal projection provided a clearer picture of “the ramifications” should the council choose not to raise that CCD rate at some point.
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