The Observation Deck

The City will lose about $1.6 million over a two year period:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/03 ... funds.html

The City is currently in arbitration with government unions. The unions refused any compromise and are hoping the arbitrator will do what arbitrators always do and give them what they want.

The administration and council have done a fine job on the budget over the last two years. Now what?

Bill Call wrote:The City will lose about $1.6 million over a two year period:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/03 ... funds.html

The City is currently in arbitration with government unions. The unions refused any compromise and are hoping the arbitrator will do what arbitrators always do and give them what they want.

The administration and council have done a fine job on the budget over the last two years. Now what?

Bill

What I found most telling were the comments out of Parma.

Dennis Kish, Parma's treasurer, said his city can weather the loss of about $900,000 this year because it planned for less state support and is continuing mandatory furlough days and other cutbacks.

About $3.9 million of its $42.5 million budget is from local government funds, he said.

"Hopefully we can build up reserves and brace for next year," said Kish.

I cannot believe that anyone though cities would get more or even the same amount out
of the state once Kasich was elected. The man is seriously in over his head, and knows
only one thing. Cut taxes to businesses and the wealthy. This has never spurred anything
but government bankruptcy.

So for a city to not plan for these cuts and more seems terribly short sighted. Certainly
they saw them coming in Parma, and elsewhere.

Can the city stand another loss of 25 workers? Or is this simply phase 4 of the slaughter of
cities? It was refreshing to see Mayor Summers comment that combining services will not
fix the problem. This is the first push back I have seen from him on tying ourselves to the
regional anchor.

But I suppose if a city can celebrate falling but not below 50,000. A city can celebrate the
loss of 25 jobs in city services. You know, if only we could get a couple more Jimmy Johns.
I am sure they will come back and all be wealthy. Or maybe we can wish for a pants store
to magically appear, or maybe a fourth farmer's market, or maybe another Lakewood
Project concert at Lakewood Park, or maybe two Leadership Breakfasts, or more faux awards to ourselves. Or another article in Travel and Leisure we cannot live up to...

We can manage our decline, pray for help, or PLAN our future, with options. Right now I
feel we are managing decline during never ending election cycles. Right now we have
one councilman talking about the need to modernize and build "cool" pools and slides.
This is akin to fiddling while Rome burns. We are going to cut 25 service jobs and make
Lakewood Park Pool better?

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It's classic economics 101.

The city has a number to meet and can do one of two things:

(1) Decrease the money going out (i.e. cut fundings)
(2) Increase the money coming in (i.e. raise taxes)

Unfortunately, many communities focusing on (1) which is very easy and a section of (2) by way of raising taxes.

The more sustainable item though is to do (2) and do it by increasing the incoming money by getting more people to live here. However, that requires creative thinking and long term planning that, admittedly, takes more time than just cutting things or raising taxes.

I definitely don't have all the answers, but I do think that Lakewood is in a unique position not only in NEO but also in the US. There are WAY too few communities in the US where you can walk to so many things yet are not in a huge city and can actual afford the housing.

We are 15 minutes from the airport on a bad day. We are on a lake. We have advantages of so many cultural and social amenities within 60 minutes. Our schools are good. Oh, yeah, and our cost of living is great. But why aren't more people moving here?

That is the question that should be answered, IMHO.

Matthew Lee wrote:We are 15 minutes from the airport on a bad day. We are on a lake. We have advantages of so many cultural and social amenities within 60 minutes. Our schools are good. Oh, yeah, and our cost of living is great. But why aren't more people moving here?

That is the question that should be answered, IMHO.

Matthew

That is the question.

I fear we have been told for more than 12 years that 1)Economic Development will save us,
when in fact all it does is decrease living space, with a much more expensive property use
that rarely matches what was lost. 2) The same people have been waiting for Team Neo and
CLE+ to save us in the regional push. This is also nothing more than snake oil.

Our leaders have taken their collective eye off the ball, for the easy answers that simply
do not hold water.

FWIW


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I’m always amazed when governments cut the most visible programs before any attempt at squeezing the fat out of bloated bureaucracies. If I was governor, the first thing I would do is to tell department heads or appointees to find a way to cut your budget by 12-15% without sacrificing services. And if they can’t do it, I’d get someone who can. I would bet my house there is at least 15% fat at the state level.

Kasich’s budget is a short sighted mess that doesn’t address the fundamental issues of too much spending, government fat and corporate hostage taking like the financing Bob Evans’ move from Columbus to Albany to be closer to their CEO’s home or American Greetings bluff (do you really thing AG would move to Chicago with it’s high tax rate?).

Jim O'Bryan wrote:Right now we have one councilman talking about the need to modernize and build "cool" pools and slides. This is akin to fiddling while Rome burns. We are going to cut 25 service jobs and make Lakewood Park Pool better?

I think our pools are cool enough. Just ask my kids when their lips are turning blue after 30 minutes

Ohio’s budget also calls for allowing local governments to generate new revenue by selling naming rights to their buildings. Any suggestions?

http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Ohio_state_budget

All of the City's contracts with unions for 2010-2012 have been settled, and each that went to arbitration were found in favor of the City.

High level highlights from each contract:
2010 COLA = 0%
2011 COLA = 1%
2012 COLA = 2%

Move to 90/10 Healthcare Plan from 100% coverage plus a 10% employee contribution for family and 13% for single coverage.

No stipends or uniform bonuses were increased. Perfect Attendance bonus phased out for all new employees for all unions with the exception of Fire.

In terms of the budget, the City of Lakewood can also weather the revenue reduction in 2011 with minimal, if any, impact on services.

from Jennifer Pae, Director of Finance

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Huh.

I am in complete agreement with Charlie here.


"Short sighted mess" is exactly the term I've been searching for all morning.

Uh--Charlie? Where did you get that waste in government thing? Ronnie Reagan perchance? No doubt we're in the ditch because of Reaganomics and the "Reagan Revolution."
We're gonna have a rough two years or so with the boy governor who demonstrably didn't crack a book since 7th grade and thinks he's super cool by winging it with off the cuff speeches.
So, we're going to have to buckle down to basics, education and basic city services until the larger Ohio electorate realizes they bought into Eddie Haskell's dimwit half brother and bounce his but.
Our mayor and council will just have to continue with real life arithmetic, not broad brush percentages to keep things going until stability and a sense of fiscal responsibility and community stewardship return to State government.
Stan

I would check that on the perfect attendance bonus again Jim.

scott gilman wrote:I would check that on the perfect attendance bonus again Jim.

Scott


Not from me, but from Jennifer Pae.

Thanks as always for taking the time.


peace

Stan Austin wrote:Uh--Charlie? Where did you get that waste in government thing? Ronnie Reagan perchance? No doubt we're in the ditch because of Reaganomics and the "Reagan Revolution."

We’re in the ditch for a lot of reasons, least of which is Reagonomics. But you’re right Stan, there’s no waste in government. I forgot it’s called stimulating the economy and they’ve been doing that for decades. We’re not paying $800 for a hammer, we’re stimulating the economy. The fed is not wasting $700,000 for studies on cow burps, $950,000 to help the men in Africa wash their private parts after sex, 270 million dollar bridges to nowhere, buying Escalades for members of congress family use and on and on and on...it’s stimulating the economy. I get it now

The bottom line is our national debt is 14,300,000,000,000 and climbing every day. That’s 14.3 trillion (please double check the number of zeros because it makes my head spin). We can argue all day long whose fault it is. We can’t tax our way out of a hole that deep. There has to be some serious deep painful cuts starting with the waste....err...stimulatory spending.

Stan Austin wrote:We're gonna have a rough two years or so with the boy governor who demonstrably didn't crack a book since 7th grade and thinks he's super cool by winging it with off the cuff speeches.
So, we're going to have to buckle down to basics, education and basic city services until the larger Ohio electorate realizes they bought into Eddie Haskell's dimwit half brother and bounce his but.

Kasich talks a good game (like most politicians) but when the rubber hits the road, as we see with the current budget, the tires are shredding. The re-treads are coming unglued. I’m not impressed with his recent speeches. I don’t want to hear one thing and see another. His budget makes little sense. He’s not a dimwit, after all, he didn’t make it to where he is by being stupid. He’s just incredibly short sighted.

Stan Austin wrote:Our mayor and council will just have to continue with real life arithmetic, not broad brush percentages to keep things going until stability and a sense of fiscal responsibility and community stewardship return to State government.

I’ve done budgeting and planning for $600 million companies. I’ve done a lot of audit work and business process improvements/re-engineering. There’s not a company that I’ve touched that can’t cut expenses by 10%. Waste in government is rampant. 15% cut at the state level is not a ‘broad brush percentage’. Realistically, its probably more than 15%. We don’t need a ‘sense’ of fiscal responsibility, we need actual fiscal responsibility. I want governments to show me with their actions, not words.

I think a lot of programs and cities have made a lot of painful cuts over the past ten years and now we're just seeing the nail on the coffin. A lot of things are going to choke and sputter out. With all republicans in the statehouse I imagine this budget is going to sail through. We are still waiting to see what the federal budget is going to rain down on us.

I do agree there is a huge lack of vision from all directions. We can't decide where we want to go as a society. That vacuum of vision is being filled by corporations who don't care what kind of wreckage they leave in their wake from the mortgage meltdown to environmental damage to just pure hoarding of capital right now to make us more desperate.

We need vision desperately. But where does vision get you? We had Obama come out with a vision for universal health care. Something that's been needed and talked about since Truman. A thing that could rewrite how our economy works, make businesses more competitive, make it easier to start a small business, cut spiraling costs in Medicare, keep people out of bankruptcy, keep people from dying due to lack of coverage, keep government budgets from sinking due to healthcare costs, so many ways the vision and idea would move us forward into the future.

Where did that get us? Something that is so important to an advanced civilized society, something accepted by nearly every industrialized country in the world except us. A fairly simple concept: cover everybody because it is the right thing to do, it will save lives and money in the long run. This gets vilified and demonized into something completely unrecognizable because people hate change, even more than uncertainty, they fear change but guess what???? The world changes anyway!

On a side note though, if corporations really didn't like uncertainty, the wheel never would have caught on, we'd not be pulling oil and coal out of the ground, computers wouldn't exists, etc. I just don't buy that corporations are just paralyzed with fear because they don't know how much they'll pay in taxes. If thats the case, they've just run out of vision and we need the next cycle to rise us up into this 2st century.

This is the same governor that worked for Lehman Brothers. Maybe that's where he learned his crack budgeting skills.

We all know how Lehman turned out.

FWIW I do hope that this finally prods our city council to throw an income tax increase on the ballot. It's needed, it's been needed for awhile and I'd rather them get it done before it's too late, they cut too much, and Lakewood's reputation begins to suffer.

If they do it now, you can get away with a pretty modest increase of say .25% (that's only an extra $8.33/month for person making $40,000 which shouldn't kill anyone) and make a huge difference in the budget. You wait until it's too late and they've killed our services and would probably require a much bigger increase to claw ourselves back.