You may have heard that the Mayor’s office and the City Council have reached a compromise on the city budget. I think that it is the Mayor and Council President Theo Gregory who have reached the compromise, since no Council votes have been taken yet. Forgetting that detail, the 9.9% Hair on Fire increase (this was the one that if they didn’t get it, they wouldn’t be able to maintain city services — even though this tax increase would cover the current budget shortfall enough to produce an almost $3M budget surplus. Now, the “compromise” is a 5% property tax increase that leaves the city with a $1.4M surplus. The Water and Sewer rates are being reduced to 5% increases each (from 8% and 7% respectively), and the City will still not be paying its share of these bills.
Wilmingtonians, are you feeling played yet? Your government tells you with a straight face that they will need to severely cut back on services if it doesn’t get a 9.9% tax increase — even though that increase left them with a surplus. Now you get a “compromise” being promoted that bravely claims that all services will be saved, you get to pay more taxes still and there is still a surplus. The city already has various “Rainy Day Funds” and one of them was just tapped to cover the overtime the city incurred for all of this winter’s snow removal. Overtime that they locked in by closing the city’s offices at the drop of a hat. None of the surplus funds will be used to replenish any of these funds. What will the surplus be used for? Maybe the Mayor and City Council know.
A tax increase to close a budget gap is one thing. A tax increase to create a slush fund is something else altogether. The Water and Sewer Fund is basically a user fee and the fund was badly depleted — given the need to upgrade the infrastructure and to maintain clean water, this one is less hard to take. But for the city to expect the rest of us to subsidize their water bill is ridiculous. Especially since there are people who have lost their homes over unpaid water bills.
Then we have the little discussed fact that the City borrowed $4M that was handed over to the Wilmington Housing Partnership to by properties on the East Side. And no one knows how they are spending some other real estate funds, yet they are asking the property tax payers of the city to fund a slush fund.
So will the City Council get 7 votes to pass this mess? Check out this vapid bit of business from the NJ article and you tell me:
Councilwoman Sherry Dorsey Walker said Monday afternoon she’s not a fan of tax increases but knows “it takes money to move government forward.” She said she’s also glad the council’s compromise doesn’t call for cuts in city services.
The Councilwoman seems to think that unnecessary tax increases on her constituents will get her to the State Senate.