From the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette:
A majority of City Council members see nothing that needs cut in Mayor Tom Henry’s proposed $147 million budget for 2014.
The City Council has been debating the proposed budget for two weeks and is expected to give it preliminary approval Tuesday and final approval Oct. 22. On Friday, council members turned in their proposed cuts to the budget, but only four of the nine members proposed any.
Those cuts totaled an estimated $515,000, less than four-tenths of 1 percent of the budget.
Russ Jehl, R-2nd, also proposed cuts in the CEDIT budget, funded by county economic development income tax money. CEDIT spending is the purview of the mayor, and the council usually rubber stamps its line items, but Jehl proposed $607,000 in cuts – 15 percent of its $4 million budget.
He calls for removing $92,000 from the incentive fund, $65,000 from the marketing fund, $250,000 from Front Door Fort Wayne and $200,000 from Bike Fort Wayne.
Jehl also proposed $350,000 in cuts to the general fund budget, including the $250,000 earmarked to design, engineer and buy land for a new fleet operations building.
Geoff Paddock, D-5th, proposed cutting the 2 percent increase in elected officials’ salaries, a cut of about $15,000.
John Crawford and Marty Bender, both at-large Republicans, targeted the internal audit department, as they did last year.
Both propose cutting one person from the three-person department; last year Bender proposed cutting the entire department.
Tuesday, when the council debated the department’s $276,862 proposed budget, Crawford explained that it’s simply a philosophical question of whether it’s a better use of taxpayer money to do fewer audits with two people or more audits with three.
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