City Of Atlanta Hit With Deep Budget Cuts

The City Of Atlanta is making some deep budget cuts, to try to overcome a $140 million budget shortfall. The city will lay off more than 400 city jobs. The lay offs will affect every department in city government. The cuts to the police and fire departments will be limited to administrative staff at the moment. However Mayor Shirley Franklin warns that if the city council doesn’t approve her proposed property tax increase on June 2, the city could lose as many as 200 police officers, 90 firefighters and the closing of six fire stations.

The job cuts come as the mayor tries to balance the city’s $589 million budget. Along with the job cuts and property tax increase, the mayor wants to raise fees for city services. It’s also been revealed that nearly 4000 invoices to vendors have gone unpaid. The city doesn’t know how much money those invoices total.

Mayor Franklin has defended her leadership of the city. Recently an audit determined the city’s finances were in a state of chaos. The city overspent its budget by $90 million this past year. The city’s pension costs are extremely high and there has been poor budgeting by officials for years. All this is currently going on despite an audit in 2002 that highlighted the same problems and outlined solutions that were never put into place. So who should the people of Atlanta blame for this?

I think the blame falls squarely in the Mayor’s lap. She should be held accountable for the city’s finances. Recommendations from the 2002 audit were not enacted. Basically the past has repeated itself within the span of a few years. There is no excuse for the problems the city is facing especially when the solution was in black and white for the Mayor and staff to read. I wonder if they even bothered to read the entire report. Mayor Franklin has traveled around the country and received various awards for her excellent leadership ability. U.S. News and World Report and the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government named Mayor Franklin as one of “America’s Best Leaders”. I think had she stayed home and read a report or two instead of going out and getting a “pre-mature” pat on the back she could have saved the city from a lot or heart ache. When she became Mayor there was lots of hype about her being the city’s first female mayor and first African-American Female mayor of a major southern city. But it looks like the end of her second and hopefully final term will be here most memorable. Her tenure at city hall started out with lots of excitement, but is rapidly becoming a disappointment.