From the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette:
Last summer, city officials were in a bind: The property tax caps put into the state Constitution had already cost the city $53 million just since 2009 – money that could have gone to parks, roads, trails, and hiring police officers and firefighters.
With income dropping, the obvious choice was to cut spending. But the City Council, which controls the budget, had kept spending in check for decades, meaning there were few, if any, places to cut.
The budget for 2013 was expected to be about $5 million short, which would hurt, but was survivable. The 2014, budget, however, looked to be brutal: If the city does nothing, current estimates say there will be an $11 million shortfall, and there are no cash reserves to plug the hole.
New income would have to be found, officials reasoned, but how would a tax increase ever get through the City Council, controlled 6-3 by Republicans who had campaigned on fiscal responsibility?
The answer – intentional or not – was to turn the idea’s biggest potential critic into an advocate.
Deputy Mayor Mark Becker said the mayor’s decision last year to form a Fiscal Policy Task Force was not about political strategy, but about reality: The looming budget crisis had to be dealt with, and Mayor Tom Henry wanted a panel of experts to examine the issue from every angle.
“We knew when we began the fiscal policy discussions that this was a bipartisan discussion because it was a bipartisan issue,” Becker said. “We knew we wanted Dr. (John) Crawford because of his financial expertise, but not just Dr. Crawford, but also other council members and experts like John Stafford (director of the Community Research Institute at IPFW).”
Regardless of intent, having Crawford working on the issue from the beginning resulted in the council’s budget hawk well versed on the crisis the city faces.
Crawford may or may not agree to raise taxes to deal with the budget gap – he says he hasn’t made up his mind – but he has been very clear on what exactly is at stake.
“We’ve reached a point where we have to decide: If we cut further, it will lead to negative effects on the quality of life and economic development in the city,” Crawford said.
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See the full article here:
http://journalgazette.net/article/20130414/LOCAL/304149944/0/SEARCH
