City Councilman John Crawford, R-at large, said at Tuesday's council meeting that the votes the nine councilmen will take in the next few weeks will be the most important of the year, and possibly the most important votes of their term.
So he assigned them homework.
They are to come to council next Tuesday prepared to discuss how much funding will be needed in 2014 to provide essential city services – services every resident should care about. Funding for street repairs, parks maintenance, and new police officers and firefighters is at stake.
The budget squeeze is due to property tax caps in effect since 2009 that have cost the city $53 million in revenue. if the city makes no cuts to its 2014 budget and doesn't increase taxes, by Dec. 13, 2014, the projected cash balance is expected to be $4 million in the red. "That's not legal," Crawford said. "We can't do that."
The options include cutting services and layoffs, raising taxes, or some mix of the two.
The city administration has proposed a raft of ordinances to fix the budget crisis based on recommendations from a Fiscal Policy Group created in 2012 by Mayor Tom Henry. The proposals include unpopular benefit changes for city employees that could save about $3 million and adoption of a 0.5 percent Local Option Income Tax that could be done one of two ways: either a 0.5 percent increase entirely for property tax relief or a 0.25 percent increase for property tax relief (generating $3.7 million in revenue) and a 0.25 percent increase for public safety (generating $11 million in revenue). The city says the result of that scenario would be 20 new police officers, 15 new firefighters, and funding for street improvements and parks without borrowing money.
However, councilmen Russ Jehl, R-2nd and Mitch Harper, R-4th, have proposed an alternative framework that would avoid an income tax increases. The solutions, they say, include spending cuts, expiring debt obligations, increased assessed value, using the banked levy and more.
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