CITY FINANCES

By Janice E. Keating

As Your Representative on the City Council, I Will Focus on Fiscal Responsibility

A balanced budget was recently submitted to the council for approval. This landmark budget reflected months of work by city staff and citizens who labored countless hours to trim costs and produce a truly remarkable plan. As a citizen, I immersed myself in this process and was impressed by the openness and candor of our city management and staff who were always willing to share and always open to input. Unfortunately, this balanced budget was sabotaged at the last hour when, after the close of the public session, a number of council members engaged in an orgy of spending designed to increase their stature with public interest groups. This grab bag spending has sent the City back into the red to the tune of over $100,000, an amount that is likely to increase over the coming year.

This type fiscal irresponsibility and political opportunism needs to end with this election. The old "tax-and-spend more" attitude needs to be defeated.

Before considering any plan that would increase taxes on an already over-burdened public, we need to ensure that our city government is operating as efficiently as possible. Government should provide only those basic services necessary to maintain safety, order and public infrastructure and it should provide those services well. Any expenditure that does not fall within the basic responsibilities of government should be looked at with a very critical eye. The city should not attempt to duplicate services that are better provided by charitable, community and religious organizations.