CCO COMMENTARY: It’s Time For City Council To Start Challenging The City Deficient Spending Practices

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It’s Time For City Council To Start Challenging The City Deficient Spending Practices

The City Council budget hearings for 2019 is ready to begin sometime in the near future?  Over the years we enjoy watching the former Finance Chairman of City Council, Dan McGinn and City Controller Russ Lloyd Jr do a “balancing act” with past due to bills, advancement on future revenue and proposed tax increases they insist were “negligible”.

We expect that in the upcoming 2019 budget hearings, that the majority of members of City Council will start challenging the city deficient spending practices and do a better job in questioning the continued waste and overspending habits of the Winnecke Administration.  Over the last couple of years, we have become more concerned about the City’s financial status with each passing month.

During the last several years we suspected that the city finances were not in good shape. In fact, the former City Council Finance Chairman Dan McGinn acknowledged that the city finances were not in the best of shape.

Some Evansville residents are already struggling to hold on to their homes, buy medications, pay ever-increasing utility bills, and put food on the table.  Young families are scraping to save money for a down payment on a home to put down roots in a city that presently doesn’t have an overabundance of good-paying jobs.

We have been saying for several years that the  City of Evansville Employee Healthcare funding is in trouble and a day of reconcillation is near. We expect that the Mayor and his Controller, Russ Lloyd, Jr. will again tell members of City Council that Evansville is expected to have more revenue than in previous years so they shouldn’t worry about increasing City spending for 2019.

This year you may even hear the majority of council members saying they must cut extraneous funding to offset a sharp increase in Employee Health insurance costs of city employees.  Like it or not the City’s Employee Healthcare costs will experience a sharp increase during the 2019 budget year. The City Council may be forced to increase the employees’ deductibles and out-of-pocket expense. We expect City Council members, Justin Elpers and G. John Hayden, CPA to lead the charge.

It’s time that Council makes some tough choices in order to balance the budget, like laying some employees off, discontinue the city from subsidizing the ThunderBolts Hockey team, no pay increases for City Council members, and city employees together with department heads and the Mayor’s staff for 2019.  Council may even decide to delays the future expansion of new exhibits for the Zoo, eliminating the funding of “political pork barrel” projects, make major reduction to city grants given to area not-for-profits, make cuts to sports grants awards, the suspension of capital projects requested by department heads, put a freeze on hiring new employees for 2019, cut the proposed 2019 city budget by 2%. across the board and once for all address the Employee Healthcare funding problems head-on.

The most important ingredient that we believe has been missing from past budget discussions is how to stretch the budget.  It’s time for the city administration and the City Council to adhere to the principle that requires transparency and a willingness to be innovative in order to promote local government efficiencies.

We predict that all eyes will be on At-Large City Council member and Finance Chairmen  Jonathon Weaver to see if he is up to the task of convincing his fellow Council members its time to make hard and painful budgetary decisions concerning the 2019 City budget.   Somehow we believe that Mr. Weaver has the capacity to do just that.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Counting on Weaver is a very scary proposition. Also scary is the leftist Democrats use of Courts to oppose the enforcement of our immigration laws. We can always count on the Democrats to oppose any border enforcement:
    ……………
    “The Attorneys General of 17 states and the District of Columbia, all Democrats, filed a 128-page complaint in federal court in Seattle Tuesday, asking the court to enshrine in law practices that turn children into shields for illegal aliens and frustrate immigration enforcement.

    The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, is being billed by outlets like the Associated Press (AP) as an effort by states to “reunite migrant families.” In reality, the suit has little to do with the small number of alleged illegal aliens whose children are still being housed separately from them as they await criminal trial for crossing U.S. borders without authorization.

    Its main focus is on forcing the administration to give up its policy of enforcing American immigration laws and adopt a bevy of open-borders policies aimed at allowing, effectively, unlimited numbers of people to enter the country without recourse.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/06/26/18-democrat-ags-ask-courts-to-make-kids-into-golden-tickets/

  3. Very good commentary. The rising water bills are something else that I predict may be a stumbling-block for Winnecke cruising to a smooth win next year, if there is a credible alternatve available. We’re in a big mess, Evansville.

    • I guess if your a Dem your glad a Repub mayor put all this on the citizens. Its a problem for him. But he was the first to call it what it is and get started. When would some of you suggest we finally start repairing our sewers and gas lines? It was time. The bill was due that those before us didnt want to pay- so go talk to grandpa and grandma and uncle Joe

      • The money was always there and should have been use 15-20 years ago for water and sewer lines. The politicians have acted like a young married couple. All new carpets, furniture and a total redo of the interior of the house and all the time it had a leaking roof. All the money thrown downtown and surrounding areas is a waste, the area will revert back to it’s former state in a couple of years. Simply does not sustain itself.

        • Mack is correct. Nobody wants to be held responsible for rate increases at the ballot box. Perhaps you should review the average water and sewer rates throughout the state. IDEM will have no sympathy for you until your rates are equitable.

      • McDonald I
        Lloyd Sr.
        Vanderveer
        McDonald II
        Little Lloyd
        Weinzapfel
        Winner

        The all were aware of the EWSU infrastructure issues. But they all put off the repairs to provide “entertainment” to the masses. (Roberts Stadium Renovations, Hartke Pool Renovations, Riverside Drive/Dress Plasa Renovations, Main Street renovations, Victory Theater, proposed downtown baseball complex, tear down Roberts Stadium/build the Ford Center) Yep, every administration wants to be remembered for building their “Coliseum” (public works project for the masses that keeps the Union voters happy).
        The Vanderburgh County Auditorium/Old National Events Plaza and the Vanderburgh County Jail were Vanderburgh County Commissioners/Council projects so you can’t put those on the backs of the former Mayors and current Mayor or City Councils.

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