Wake Me Up, Before You Go Go

In my younger days, oversleeping was a problem. Ultimately, I paid a price for oversleeping, and learned to get my butt going. I've always been a night person, so it has taken some fortitude to adjust to the rhythms of a world designed for morning persons.

New Albany is now paying the price for the previous administration's (and council's) nasty habit of sleeping through important deadlines and letting its year-to-year spending number get out of balance.

Make no mistake about it. The city didn't just forget to repay the money it borrowed from the sewer board. It overspent, and although Messrs. Kochert, Coffey, Schmidt, and Garner were on that council, they didn't practice the necessary oversight to prevent these consequences.

That would explain some of the hyper-attention being paid to budget matters this term by the three veteran council members. Their vigilance is a model for the newly elected members of the council, too. Mr. Seabrook is, of course, a veteran who was not then serving.

But it is Mr. Garner, now mayor, who seems to have the firmest grasp of the consequences, as he should. Now, he must "garner" the trust of the council as they begin the painful adjustment process.

As it happens, the city has the ability to tighten its belt this once, helped by a seeming windfall that appears to be from the state's distribution of unanticipated income tax collection (statewide collections, not necessarily local ones). The so-called "rainy day" fund will accommodate a large percentage of the $2.8 million that must be made up this year to pay for past mistakes. Although this fund would have been available to cover future contingencies, our rainy day is here now, so pray for good fiscal weather in the next five years or so.

The second windfall is less unexpected. The mayor proposes to dip into the "riverboat" fund (an allocation of taxes collected by Harrison County each year and subsequently distributed to its city neighbor) to the extent of $800,000. The riverboat fund is, apparently, intended for infrastructure and capital acquisitions, and this crisis will leave the fund above water, but significantly leaner.

Cuts in planned general fund expenditures add a few hundred thousand to the kitty, but the mayor expects there will be no need for layoffs.

Finally, the city is poised to again borrow from the sewer board, this time to the tune of $500,000. That cool half-million, in all likelihood, will have to be squeezed out of NEXT YEAR'S BUDGET.

So, there's your report from the City Council work session held Tuesday. Although the city will be operating at the margin, the executive and the legislative branches appear ready to pay for the city's past mistakes, for the most part out of this year's budget.

The state is running even farther behind in reporting the audited beginning and ending fund balances for 2002 and 2003, so there may be a slide left or right in these numbers, but all that remains is about 4 to 6 weeks of public notice and legislative appropriation action to authorize the changes.

We assume the council members who were unable to make Tuesday's work session have or will study the mayor's proposal and be ready to cooperate in making it work. We're all going to feel the pain this year and next, but it appears that for the time being the interpersonal squabbles will be put aside and the administration and the council will shoulder the responsibility together.