Annapolis Mayor Josh Cohen and members of the City Council announced yesterday that they will radically retool the proposed 2012 budget to include tax increases and budget cuts in order to prevent the City’s finances from collapsing.
You’ve seen what they had to say – what do YOU think? Is it enough? Is it the right thing to do?
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As I looked over the fluff that was distributed, it really only addresses the apparent incompetence of the City Manager and the Finance Director.
People were up in arms on the increased budget since it was announced. Then at the last minute, Mallinoff and Miller discovered $4 million of unanticipated debt.
So this major “revision” totaling only $4.7 million really only gets us out of the most recently discovered hole and does not address the increased spending in the initial proposed budget.
While the Mayor wants to laud the Finance Department how can debts of this size be unexpected? Mallinoff was very involved with the whole Park Place deal when he was in DNEP under former Mayor Moyer.
And how long did it take to calculate these cuts? Mayor Cohen didn’t give a firm answer, but unless he had a team working around the cut with intimate knowledge of each budget item and how cuts would affect the City’s service, these cuts are a hack job.
Cuts are necessary, but only smart cuts. The repercussions of cutting the budget recklessly could be even worse than our current financial issues.
The “cuts” are still a lot of smoke and mirrors. The Mayor needs to be pressed hard to show what they’ll be. Eliminating vacant positions and “attrition” tell me that 100% of the tax increase will be realized, but we’ll get to the end of 2012, and will have only come up with 5% of the cuts.
As for the tax increase, I’m going to talk to Ross about the feasibility of making the MRE’s dream a reality. Maybe it’s time to pull up the Spa Creek draw bridge, and leave it up.
Many, many thanks to Alderman Ross Arnett’s foresight, intelligence and persistence for educating his fellow council members and the public on the scope and depth of the city’s dire budget situation, and steps needed to address them rationally. The council had to be pulled out of it shallow and conventional thinking about the situation, and Ross had the background and ability to do that!
The specific steps the council now takes to follow up on its stated intentions to get the budget under control should and will be carefully watched by the pulic.
Bob Slawson is correct. They came kicking and screaming all the way, and Ross’s persistence is what was needed.
However, it’s still just a bunch of talk until we see real verifiable spending cuts. Hopefully, the promise of cuts isn’t being laid out there just as justification for the tax increase.
The real estate tax increase, and especially the water/sewer rate increases are going to be much more hurtful to people and the vitality of the city than they realize. The tax burden is making many home buyers cross Annapolis off their list, and this tax increase will only reinforce the high expense of living in the city.
I’m wondering if the best way to have meaningful cuts made isn’t to provide the Mayor with a budget. It seems like Ross’ team has already done a lot of the legwork in parsing the numbers – maybe it’s time for them to deliver Mayor Cohen a real solution.
The spending cuts aren’t firm, and in some cases, they aren’t even real. It’s just a promise made, so the public will swollow a tax increase, a promise that I doubt will not be filled. For example, they say they’re going to save $300,000 in the Fire Department. But, Cohen ramed that contract through last Monday, approving one that was actually $100,000 more that what the 2012 budget called for. The contract has been “passed”; there’s no changing it now.