Latest / Brian Thomas / Steve Goodin - City's $29M Budget Deficit

Transcript

Steve Goodin - City's $29M Budget Deficit · Brian Thomas

0:14
Speaker 1: Seven six fifty five Carsite Talks Station and halfy Tuesday,
0:19
Speaker 1: one hour from nine inside Scoop of Bright Part News,
0:20
Speaker 1: Immigration editor John Dender returns talk about us well, the
0:23
Speaker 1: national media ignoring illegal immigrants, murdering citizens and molesting children,
0:29
Speaker 1: et cetera. It's that Daniel Davis deep dive on the
0:31
Speaker 1: Iran situation and without further ado. Always great to have
0:34
Speaker 1: him on the fifty five krs Morning Show because whatever
0:36
Speaker 1: he's talking about is important to what's going on in
0:38
Speaker 1: the City of Cincinnati, or maybe matters legal. Steve Gooden
0:41
Speaker 1: from the law firm Orporter Right, our legal expert and
0:44
Speaker 1: of course former counselmen, putting him in a great position
0:47
Speaker 1: to talk about the two or twenty nine point five
0:50
Speaker 1: million dollar budget deficit of the City of Cincinnati, along
0:53
Speaker 1: with KFOP President Ken Kober's comments on the corollary six
0:58
Speaker 1: point six million dollar cut to the police apartment. Steve
1:01
Speaker 1: good and welcome back.
1:02
Speaker 2: Man.
1:02
Speaker 1: It's always great having you on the show.
1:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great to be here. Wish we didn't have
1:07
Speaker 2: to talk about this. Good to be here.
1:09
Speaker 1: B Well, it'd be good if you're a city council person,
1:11
Speaker 1: because then you could make arguments in favor of what
1:13
Speaker 1: should be cut and what shouldn't be cut. And I'm
1:15
Speaker 1: sure having served as a Cincinnati councilman for a period
1:19
Speaker 1: of time, you probably have some ideas on that. And
1:21
Speaker 1: I guess I just I actually laughed, literally laughed out
1:26
Speaker 1: loud when I saw the headline about the cuts to
1:28
Speaker 1: the police department, because it was just a week ago
1:31
Speaker 1: that the council approved the resolution for eight million dollars
1:34
Speaker 1: for that music venue over at Riverbend, and I was
1:38
Speaker 1: wondering out loud on that one we talked about here
1:40
Speaker 1: on the morning show. I mean, they hadn't even been
1:42
Speaker 1: asked for money for that one. Originally it was all
1:45
Speaker 1: since a symphony orchestras moving forward with that was one
1:47
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty million dollar project, no city money involved
1:50
Speaker 1: in it. Like, where did this eight million dollar ask
1:52
Speaker 1: come for? And why did the city council prove it?
1:55
Speaker 1: Fast forward a week They get eight million dollars from
1:58
Speaker 1: music venue, at least they seem to, and now they're
1:59
Speaker 1: going to cut money from the police department, which is
2:01
Speaker 1: desperately needed. Steve, where are we on this? And you know,
2:04
Speaker 1: maybe what would a cooler, clearer headed person like you
2:07
Speaker 1: have done or would do in this situation.
2:10
Speaker 2: Well, well, if I'm the cooler, palmer person, we're all
2:13
Speaker 2: in a bad spot. But I'll tell you. I mean,
2:15
Speaker 2: it's it's just a terrible, terrible thing that's going on
2:18
Speaker 2: with the city right now. I mean, first, let's just
2:21
Speaker 2: pull it all away. It's been an open secret for weeks,
2:24
Speaker 2: if not months, that we were heading forward to nearly
2:27
Speaker 2: thirty million dollar budget deficits. I mean, these numbers aren't new.
2:31
Speaker 2: The tax or seats have been coming in where they
2:33
Speaker 2: have been quarterly for some time. So the idea that
2:36
Speaker 2: somehow the eight million dollars for the River Bend Center,
2:40
Speaker 2: which is going to a ticketed event where we for
2:43
Speaker 2: higher ends things where people with their disposal income go
2:47
Speaker 2: rather than into law enforcement. Everyone knew when they voted
2:50
Speaker 2: for that eight million that a budget deficit was going
2:53
Speaker 2: to be where it was. Almost all of them they
2:55
Speaker 2: knew or should have known. So it's even worse than
2:58
Speaker 2: it seems on the It's not like they went on
3:01
Speaker 2: a spending screen and then learned their credit card was
3:03
Speaker 2: maxed out because they hadn't been checking their credit card app.
3:07
Speaker 2: They knew what was coming, and like the eight million
3:10
Speaker 2: really points to the key problem down there is you know,
3:13
Speaker 2: these are foot whenever a city council members are talking
3:17
Speaker 2: about stakeholders quote end quote or community partners, what they
3:21
Speaker 2: really mean are the rich people who sit on these
3:23
Speaker 2: nonprofit boards or who sit on the board or something
3:26
Speaker 2: like many that owns river bench and who they want
3:29
Speaker 2: to impress and who they want to get campaign contributions from.
3:33
Speaker 2: It's not a direct Quod broke Loow corruption like you
3:36
Speaker 2: said with TV sitting feld than others, but it is
3:39
Speaker 2: a kind of soft corruption where they're trying to impruss
3:41
Speaker 2: them with taxpayer dollars. But I mean, look, I just
3:45
Speaker 2: off the top of my head, if they took that
3:47
Speaker 2: eight million plus the four point five million they spent
3:50
Speaker 2: on this like public safety initiative last year where they
3:53
Speaker 2: didn't even they had zero results. You know, they opened
3:56
Speaker 2: these perfew centers where they only had four kids the report,
4:00
Speaker 2: if they took the three million that they used for
4:03
Speaker 2: the political sun on medical debt relief that they did
4:08
Speaker 2: right and only in certain neighborhoods right before the election,
4:11
Speaker 2: and they took Irish Rolls one million dollar contract. I mean,
4:14
Speaker 2: I just got fourteen million and I haven't even really
4:17
Speaker 2: looked at the budget, so I think it's really you know,
4:21
Speaker 2: just really we're halfway there before we've even sharpened our
4:25
Speaker 2: pencils and looked at the individual departments. So you know,
4:29
Speaker 2: what jo and what they're doing here is really terrible.
4:31
Speaker 2: They're of course going back and blaming you know, blaming
4:34
Speaker 2: Republicans for everything basically. I mean, they're going over shocking
4:39
Speaker 2: development there. Could you believe it? It's not their fault,
4:44
Speaker 2: you know, hey, they're saying that.
4:46
Speaker 1: I was I just want to ask how many decades
4:49
Speaker 1: has it been since we had a Republican mayor of
4:51
Speaker 1: the City of Cincinnati. How many how many years has
4:53
Speaker 1: it been since we had, you know, a Republican dominated
4:57
Speaker 1: city council. So Republicans are at fault even though the
5:00
Speaker 1: Democrats have been running the city since an for forty years.
5:04
Speaker 2: That's correct, And I mean it took some creativity to
5:07
Speaker 2: get there. But I mean, I guess councilor and Jeff Cramertons,
5:09
Speaker 2: you know, made this very dire speech yesterday and also
5:13
Speaker 2: said this and the press thing, well, you know, the
5:15
Speaker 2: state has cut the local government fund and that's really
5:19
Speaker 2: put us in a bad spot. Yeah, it was twenty eleven,
5:25
Speaker 2: John Kasik. You know who's now a trivia question was
5:28
Speaker 2: the governor, And they did in every other municipality in
5:32
Speaker 2: Ohio sort of adjusted. They needed to cut back some
5:36
Speaker 2: of the state income tax it's maybe going away anyway,
5:39
Speaker 2: and give it to the local cities. And then finally,
5:41
Speaker 2: I think case it got to a point where the
5:43
Speaker 2: state budget was out of whack the money, there was
5:45
Speaker 2: zero accountability to how it was meant, so they cut
5:48
Speaker 2: it fifteen years ago. And then I guess they blamed
5:51
Speaker 2: the Trump administration for not renewing the American Rescue Plan money.
5:56
Speaker 2: The city's been sort of running year to year off
5:59
Speaker 2: of some of the COVID relief dollars. But of course,
6:02
Speaker 2: you know that was designed specifically to replace you know,
6:05
Speaker 2: income Tact revenue caused by office closing downtown, which it
6:09
Speaker 2: was needed at the time. I don't know that we
6:11
Speaker 2: needed to close all those offices in retrospect, but the
6:14
Speaker 2: money was needed to offset the revenue for operating purposes.
6:18
Speaker 2: And now that's gone. So rather than look at the
6:20
Speaker 2: budget and incredibly within your means, you know, there is
6:24
Speaker 2: always pointing to either Columbus or DC as the cause
6:28
Speaker 2: of their problems. It's absurd. There has been a Republican
6:31
Speaker 2: council number now in almost four years, so but yet
6:36
Speaker 2: it is someone.
6:36
Speaker 1: Else's fault, always someone else's fault. You know, I didn't
6:40
Speaker 1: see on the list from the survey that the City
6:43
Speaker 1: Cincinnati does every two years or the summary of what's important.
6:47
Speaker 1: Seth Walsh said it out loud yesterday and talking to
6:50
Speaker 1: the enquire that the residents have raided roads, snow removal,
6:54
Speaker 1: police and fire as most important. Steve good no one
6:57
Speaker 1: has ever said out loud that it's important for the
7:00
Speaker 1: City of Cincinnati to own and operate, build, own and
7:03
Speaker 1: operate its own solar farm green. How much money is
7:07
Speaker 1: the green agenda that? I mean, as if the City
7:09
Speaker 1: of Cincinnati's carbon dioxide output is going to have a
7:13
Speaker 1: remote impact on the globe. I mean, that is just insane.
7:17
Speaker 1: Steve Gooden.
7:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like that they were virtue signaling for
7:23
Speaker 2: runs for future runs for higher office by spending your
7:27
Speaker 2: Tex dollars on things might play well in the Democratic
7:31
Speaker 2: primary at some point. I mean, that's all that was.
7:34
Speaker 2: I mean, it's an open secret, as all was. I
7:35
Speaker 2: think it's out in Brown County or Highland County somewhere,
7:39
Speaker 2: and you know, one day, theoretically it's going to provide
7:42
Speaker 2: something to offset some of the bread here instance. I mean,
7:46
Speaker 2: I don't know. The whole thing is a nonsense to me.
7:48
Speaker 2: I know, they went out and did a photo op
7:50
Speaker 2: on a cornfield somewhere with some solar panels, and I
7:52
Speaker 2: forget what that one costs, but I think that was
7:54
Speaker 2: upward a sim million dollars. We're also, as I recall,
7:59
Speaker 2: still subsidizing the street park in nearly ten million a year,
8:05
Speaker 2: you know, for free rides that run in a circle,
8:07
Speaker 2: for something that is still being built nominally to the public,
8:10
Speaker 2: is being funded by and supported by charitable interests in
8:14
Speaker 2: downtown interest. The city's still on the hook for the
8:16
Speaker 2: service contract, which is roughly ten million a year. We're
8:19
Speaker 2: also paying almost that we have so much data city
8:22
Speaker 2: now that if I read the Kaffri correctly, we are
8:25
Speaker 2: paying close to a million dollars a week in interest.
8:28
Speaker 2: So that's I mean, that's that's how out of wax
8:30
Speaker 2: things are at this point. And that's just on the
8:33
Speaker 2: operating side. So I mean, we have a whole capital
8:35
Speaker 2: budget and these restricted funds that are that run the
8:38
Speaker 2: water works and the city's part of the MSD and
8:40
Speaker 2: other things are that natures that are also you know,
8:43
Speaker 2: challenged in their own way. But but there's so many
8:47
Speaker 2: things that there's so much money that has gone out
8:49
Speaker 2: the door on pet projects, you know that it's really
8:53
Speaker 2: it's truly a thurred. It's really frightening, and that, to
8:55
Speaker 2: me is one of the reasons why the railroad keeps
8:57
Speaker 2: coming up, you know, like a bad ten here, because
9:01
Speaker 2: even though those funds are restricted and have to go
9:04
Speaker 2: by state laws through two road projects and things of
9:08
Speaker 2: that nature, they're clearly the plan is to use those funds,
9:12
Speaker 2: isn't excuse it, cut back on what they would normally
9:15
Speaker 2: put into the capitol budget and use the cast for
9:18
Speaker 2: yet more pet projects. They're going to use it as
9:20
Speaker 2: an offset, not an additive. And that's and that's what
9:23
Speaker 2: I think it's starting to starting to dawn on people.
9:26
Speaker 2: Even a lot of very good, soulful Democrats in the
9:29
Speaker 2: city are saying, I'm going to wait, wait a minute here,
9:31
Speaker 2: do we get kind of scammed. The money's restricted, but
9:34
Speaker 2: they're using it as an offset, not an additive, and
9:36
Speaker 2: that's really really disgusting.
9:38
Speaker 1: Steve Goodin I want to hold you over because I
9:40
Speaker 1: want to talk about proposals to resolve this problem, one
9:43
Speaker 1: of which includes maybe increasing the income tax uh and
9:47
Speaker 1: what your perception of how that might work out will
9:50
Speaker 1: mean for the City of Cincinnati. But another thing, this
9:53
Speaker 1: has been an ongoing problem, these budget deficits, going way
9:56
Speaker 1: back before the pandemic. So clearly we have a historic problem.
10:00
Speaker 1: And I will chime in again, maybe you need some
10:03
Speaker 1: more Democrats on council and perhaps in the mayor's role
10:05
Speaker 1: more with Steve Gooden at seven fifteen right now fifty
10:08
Speaker 1: five KERC detalk station. Chimney can see the talk station
10:14
Speaker 1: at seven twenty fifty five CARCIT detalk station. Tom Zawastowski
10:17
Speaker 1: coming up next on v DA Ramaswami's plan for property taxes.
10:22
Speaker 1: We the People Convention dot orgs Tom. In the meantime,
10:24
Speaker 1: we are talking with Steve good and we got Steve
10:25
Speaker 1: good in the line right now, former council member. He
10:28
Speaker 1: is and going through this budget. Apparently this has been
10:30
Speaker 1: going on a long time. It's reported that prior to
10:34
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen, the city regularly faced deficits of twenty million
10:38
Speaker 1: dollars or more. They say the most dire one showed
10:40
Speaker 1: up in the Great Recession. At twenty nine and ten,
10:42
Speaker 1: then city Manager Milton Dahoney proposed laying off three hundred
10:46
Speaker 1: employees and one hundred plus police officers. But they didn't
10:50
Speaker 1: have to do that because apparently the unions agreed to
10:53
Speaker 1: defer some benefits. And then they imposed the new trash
10:57
Speaker 1: collection fee that year and cut some other areas, so
11:00
Speaker 1: new fees, and that lets me pivot over to the
11:02
Speaker 1: proposal that's going around and swirling around council. Now, Well,
11:05
Speaker 1: we're short on deficits, Jeff Kramerting said of the Inquirer yesterday.
11:09
Speaker 1: I think moving forward year after year, that will be
11:12
Speaker 1: the new reality, these big cuts and these budget deficits.
11:15
Speaker 1: So let's raise the income tax. Steve, how's that for
11:17
Speaker 1: an idea?
11:20
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'll tell you that's that's everywhere right now,
11:24
Speaker 2: and that's been talked about for some time. And what's
11:26
Speaker 2: kind of amazing to me, and I think one of
11:29
Speaker 2: the stories that's not being talked about here when it
11:31
Speaker 2: comes to the income tax is where the business community
11:34
Speaker 2: seems to be. And it's puzzling to me because there's
11:38
Speaker 2: this thing called the Cincinnati Futree Commission Report, which is
11:43
Speaker 2: you know, really a lot of folks that you know,
11:45
Speaker 2: it's a lot of CEOs and different people, you know,
11:48
Speaker 2: Procter and Gable CEO and others served on this thing,
11:50
Speaker 2: and it was nominally designed to fix the city's finances.
11:55
Speaker 2: There was a bunch of suggestions by by business people,
11:59
Speaker 2: and actually they favored and suggested raising the earning pack.
12:04
Speaker 2: They won't, of course set aside the money as I recall,
12:07
Speaker 2: for some sort of housing boondoggle. But it was kind
12:09
Speaker 2: of amazing to me that it typically would be the
12:12
Speaker 2: business community pushing back saying, no, you know, we don't
12:15
Speaker 2: need a higher earningtack. It's a disincentive for people to
12:18
Speaker 2: work in the Senate City. We don't need it. So
12:21
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, the business community does seem for at
12:23
Speaker 2: least a lot of the business community seems fine to
12:26
Speaker 2: go along with this thing. So I have a bad
12:29
Speaker 2: feeling it's going to happen. I'm afraid it's just more
12:32
Speaker 2: money that's going to go into into this kind of
12:35
Speaker 2: plus fun kind of scenario. The only way I would
12:38
Speaker 2: ever even cut contemplate going along with something like that
12:42
Speaker 2: is if the money were really set aside for public safety.
12:45
Speaker 2: What happens every time. This is what happened back in
12:47
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight and nine with Milton to Honey
12:49
Speaker 2: a new reference. Then they were threatening to cut firefighter.
12:52
Speaker 2: This time they're threatening to cut police. You know, they
12:56
Speaker 2: couldn't in all departments, but they put the police peep
12:58
Speaker 2: out yesterday. He's a good sold and to be talking
13:00
Speaker 2: about what these touch would look like to his department,
13:04
Speaker 2: and now what would probably mean deferring an entire recruit class,
13:07
Speaker 2: which it's badly needed. I mean, the police department at
13:09
Speaker 2: least one hundred and fifty officers understrings, arguably more so.
13:15
Speaker 2: You know that it would you know, the only way
13:17
Speaker 2: I would ever even think of something like that is
13:19
Speaker 2: if you could have depoliticize the police department by having
13:22
Speaker 2: their own stream of income identified. But no, I think
13:25
Speaker 2: they're going to do it. I think there's there's some
13:27
Speaker 2: you know, there is support to do it across the board,
13:30
Speaker 2: and I think that's one of the things that's really
13:32
Speaker 2: unfortunate here. There's a lot of folks in the business community,
13:35
Speaker 2: a lot of folks in the Chamber of Commerce who
13:37
Speaker 2: have gone along with what this whole democratic council is doing,
13:41
Speaker 2: you know, because it's in their best interest to you know,
13:45
Speaker 2: but to do their development projects and other things of
13:49
Speaker 2: that nature. They have a friendly audience for that, and
13:52
Speaker 2: it really looks like the tax burden on their workers,
13:55
Speaker 2: and it looks like what's going on with public safety
13:57
Speaker 2: has become a secondary concern of that. So you know,
14:01
Speaker 2: you can count on that going on the ballot. I
14:03
Speaker 2: think you're gonna also count on organized opposition to it,
14:07
Speaker 2: particularly if it's going to be going into the general
14:10
Speaker 2: fund where these guys can spend it at will.
14:13
Speaker 1: Well, it's an easy thing to say, we can generate
14:15
Speaker 1: more tax revenue by increasing income taxes, and of course
14:19
Speaker 1: it stands to reason that might happen. But fortunately people
14:22
Speaker 1: in this country have the ability to pack up their
14:24
Speaker 1: bags and move, which is happening across this country article
14:29
Speaker 1: after article after article on a state level. On a
14:32
Speaker 1: local level, if you make things terrible by way of
14:35
Speaker 1: not dealing with crime, homelessness, drug abuse, or you defund
14:39
Speaker 1: the police, crime runs a buck. You have wolf prosecutors
14:41
Speaker 1: who aren't putting people in jail, things deteriorate, People tend
14:45
Speaker 1: to leave. And also if you put an open and
14:48
Speaker 1: welcome to do business sign on the City of Cincinnati.
14:51
Speaker 1: What business and it's right? Mine is going to shoose
14:53
Speaker 1: within the city limits to operate a business when they
14:55
Speaker 1: can just jump outside of the city limits or maybe
14:58
Speaker 1: even outside of Hamilton County and choose one of the
15:01
Speaker 1: more attractive counties or cities to set up shop in.
15:04
Speaker 1: We're in competition. Increase in income tax is not good
15:08
Speaker 1: for residents moving into the area, I would guess.
15:12
Speaker 2: No, I think it's terrible. And I'll tell you what
15:14
Speaker 2: we and I think you just put your finger on
15:16
Speaker 2: why A lot of the business community and business leaders
15:18
Speaker 2: don't really care. Is a lot of their employees now
15:22
Speaker 2: can work from home. Yes, you know our competition. Everyone's
15:26
Speaker 2: thinking like, oh my god, our competition is Indianapolis or
15:28
Speaker 2: Columbus or whatever for this business. No, our competitions Madeira
15:32
Speaker 2: and Green Townsip and you know Marymont and these these
15:37
Speaker 2: you know, self sustaining municipalities where life's pretty good. Sycamore Towntip,
15:42
Speaker 2: you know where if you totally work from home using
15:45
Speaker 2: your laptop and do not have an actual office downtown,
15:50
Speaker 2: you no longer have to stay the city or in
15:51
Speaker 2: text even though your employer is downtown. There are workarounds.
15:55
Speaker 2: I mean you can thanks to Microsoft teams, Zoom and
15:58
Speaker 2: a really in a nice internet connect and a lot
16:01
Speaker 2: of white collar workers who are highly compensated and who
16:04
Speaker 2: pay the bulk of this tax can work from home.
16:07
Speaker 2: So you know, that is a new reality, and I
16:09
Speaker 2: don't We have not actually had an income tax increase
16:12
Speaker 2: during this work from home era, and I think they
16:15
Speaker 2: may be in for a very rude awakening. It might
16:18
Speaker 2: not lead to the level of increased factor seats that
16:21
Speaker 2: they are anticipating. And it also goes to the prime
16:25
Speaker 2: issue because people are looking to get out of downtown
16:28
Speaker 2: right now. I mean they are. I mean I hear
16:30
Speaker 2: an anecdotally. I've got real estate clients downtown. You know,
16:33
Speaker 2: just these these viral images of these fights like an
16:36
Speaker 2: Opening Day or you know, on the Fourth Street brawl
16:40
Speaker 2: last year. I mean, no matter what people how they
16:43
Speaker 2: try to recharacterize them, they hear the living daylights out
16:46
Speaker 2: of a lot of people who don't have to be
16:48
Speaker 2: downtown every day. But it's used to be. So it's
16:50
Speaker 2: a problem too.
16:52
Speaker 1: That's a great thing about America. You have choices on
16:54
Speaker 1: where you live, where you want to you know, pay
16:57
Speaker 1: tax dollars. Let's have a good return on invent which
17:00
Speaker 1: apparently the city's not delivering on. Steve Gooden, I wish
17:02
Speaker 1: you were still on council because you're a voice of
17:04
Speaker 1: reason and common sense and we certainly miss one on
17:07
Speaker 1: sinceey City Council pointing out again elections have significant consequences,
17:11
Speaker 1: and well you deal with you lay in the bed
17:13
Speaker 1: you made by voting, Steve will I hope you get
17:16
Speaker 1: to join the program again real soon. You always are
17:18
Speaker 1: on for really important subject matters, and I appreciate your
17:20
Speaker 1: willingness to spend time with my listeners and me.
17:22
Speaker 2: Sir, got it. It's an ampoloone honor Brian, you take
17:26
Speaker 2: care of Thanks for having me on.
17:28
Speaker 1: You do the same, Steve Gooden, Porter Wright is the
17:30
Speaker 1: firm seven twenty seven right now