In my nearly 19 years in Louisville there is a predictable calendar just like the church year.
The Church year has the regular seasons of Advent, Christmastide, Lent, Easter, Pentecost while the
the Louisville year has the seasons of Church Picnics, Football, Christmas, Basketball/Fish Fries, Derby, Crusade, and budget.
Most of us tend to ignore the budget season, but this year in Louisville, it has been much like an election campaign. It has produced controversy that has pulled on emotional heart strings and pushed emotional triggers. There have been a few political salvos fired among political figures and it has been interesting that elected Democrats have been those who have fired the salvos at each other. As a result people are angry and people are stirred.
Normally, budgeting is a process that is as interesting as watching paint dry. It is generally a attempt to forecast how much money is needed to operate or fund a household, project, organization, business, and government.
The main cause this year's budget controversy is the increased bill for the pension from the state. Retirees from the Jefferson County/Louisville Municipal Governments(pre-merger), Metro (post-merger) Government and JCPS have state pensions. For those who watched the legislative season in Frankfort (and how can you not from all the teacher sick-outs) the state pension fund is underfunded to pay out to everyone (especially teachers) who is due their pension.
Without getting technical and turgid about budget processes, this year's Louisville budget process is essentially about what kind of pain are we willing to tolerate? It is a negotiating process that is going to be one in which there is going to be hardball bargaining.
The simplest but most painful answer was raising taxes on certain insurances as proposed by the Mayor. However, that was shot down.
The next answer became cuts in city budget, and that is where we are.
Our city leaders are bargaining about what kind of cuts are going to be made. I do credit Brent Ackerson for making the statement that the city does have a "spending problem," in noting that a parcel for the homeless storage was purchased at a price way over market value.
I agree with Brent, but I will concede that to get a choice piece of downtown property for a non-economic-development purpose, eminent domain would have been political death for someone. Downtown land is choice land in the eyes of all political parties, including the Courier-Journal Despite its history of socially liberal thought the Courier Journal hypocritically encouraged JCTC to take the old Holiday Inn/now Hotel Louisville by eminent domain for a parking lot when the Wayside Mission purchased it.
Anyway, back to budget issues . . . the Mayor fired the first bargaining shot by proposing closing the West End swimming pools, closing some libraries (Fern Creek/Middletown), and cutting the next year's police recruiting class. Those were proposals that appeared to invoke anger and the feeling of crisis.
I have listened to my connections from "Friends of the Library," and there is deep concern about how it is going to affect the different library branches, especially, Bon Air. We received notice that they could not accept our reservation for meeting space on July 8, 2019 because they did not know whether or not the library would be open at night at that time?
We will be hearing different news stories over the next several weeks about the different organizations and contracting nonprofits campaigning and bargaining to continue to get their piece of the Metro Budget pie. There will be winners and losers in any situation, but I can only encourage my fellow neighbors to state their opinions to Brent and other government leaders, but also stay calm for this too will pass and we will move on to Church Picnic season.
Oh yeah, and please consider coming to our next Bon Air Neighborhood Association Meeting, Monday June 10, 2019 at 6:30 pm at the community room in the Bon Air Library. The library will still be open at night.
The Church year has the regular seasons of Advent, Christmastide, Lent, Easter, Pentecost while the
the Louisville year has the seasons of Church Picnics, Football, Christmas, Basketball/Fish Fries, Derby, Crusade, and budget.
Most of us tend to ignore the budget season, but this year in Louisville, it has been much like an election campaign. It has produced controversy that has pulled on emotional heart strings and pushed emotional triggers. There have been a few political salvos fired among political figures and it has been interesting that elected Democrats have been those who have fired the salvos at each other. As a result people are angry and people are stirred.
Normally, budgeting is a process that is as interesting as watching paint dry. It is generally a attempt to forecast how much money is needed to operate or fund a household, project, organization, business, and government.
The main cause this year's budget controversy is the increased bill for the pension from the state. Retirees from the Jefferson County/Louisville Municipal Governments(pre-merger), Metro (post-merger) Government and JCPS have state pensions. For those who watched the legislative season in Frankfort (and how can you not from all the teacher sick-outs) the state pension fund is underfunded to pay out to everyone (especially teachers) who is due their pension.
Without getting technical and turgid about budget processes, this year's Louisville budget process is essentially about what kind of pain are we willing to tolerate? It is a negotiating process that is going to be one in which there is going to be hardball bargaining.
The simplest but most painful answer was raising taxes on certain insurances as proposed by the Mayor. However, that was shot down.
The next answer became cuts in city budget, and that is where we are.
Our city leaders are bargaining about what kind of cuts are going to be made. I do credit Brent Ackerson for making the statement that the city does have a "spending problem," in noting that a parcel for the homeless storage was purchased at a price way over market value.
I agree with Brent, but I will concede that to get a choice piece of downtown property for a non-economic-development purpose, eminent domain would have been political death for someone. Downtown land is choice land in the eyes of all political parties, including the Courier-Journal Despite its history of socially liberal thought the Courier Journal hypocritically encouraged JCTC to take the old Holiday Inn/now Hotel Louisville by eminent domain for a parking lot when the Wayside Mission purchased it.
Anyway, back to budget issues . . . the Mayor fired the first bargaining shot by proposing closing the West End swimming pools, closing some libraries (Fern Creek/Middletown), and cutting the next year's police recruiting class. Those were proposals that appeared to invoke anger and the feeling of crisis.
I have listened to my connections from "Friends of the Library," and there is deep concern about how it is going to affect the different library branches, especially, Bon Air. We received notice that they could not accept our reservation for meeting space on July 8, 2019 because they did not know whether or not the library would be open at night at that time?
We will be hearing different news stories over the next several weeks about the different organizations and contracting nonprofits campaigning and bargaining to continue to get their piece of the Metro Budget pie. There will be winners and losers in any situation, but I can only encourage my fellow neighbors to state their opinions to Brent and other government leaders, but also stay calm for this too will pass and we will move on to Church Picnic season.
Oh yeah, and please consider coming to our next Bon Air Neighborhood Association Meeting, Monday June 10, 2019 at 6:30 pm at the community room in the Bon Air Library. The library will still be open at night.
