Being a citizen of Columbus it is disheartening to watch our city council endangering the financial position of the city again. Historically I watched the council during the time Joe Taggert was the CFO, and I would ask him, “Joe, do we have the money?” to see him shake his head and wince then say the city can borrow against a line credit they have. They would do it. Now, recent councils are issuing bonds to pave and “other things” on multiple occasions even though they were running deficits $800,000 year after year without drilling down and defining the deficit. Now they have voted just one month into the fiscal year, busting the budget they just approved for pay raises for all employees with the thinking they can make up anything from reserves. Do I hear another year with deficit spending in the range of $400,000 for this action? Have they thought about what is going to be the impact at the end of the fiscal year when the tax revenues from vehicle sales are down? Maybe they can’t see the empty lots on 45. I believe that the sales tax returns to date have been the result of the additional unemployment payments from the feds that are not there now.
Look at the news of the rise in COVID infections for the third time in our country. What impact is that going to have? No one can predict that now.
The next thing we as citizens must be concerned about is the use of the recovery funds coming to the city without definitive guidelines being issued by our government yet. The council is willing to follow another governmental body defining all employees as essential during the COVID epidemic phase we just went through and giving them premium pay. The risk here will be this is deemed not within the guidelines and the city will be required to return those funds one or two years in the future without funds to do that.
Berry Hinds, Columbus
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