The Virginian-Pilot
©
CHESAPEAKE
The city's budget shortfall next year could be $30 million, city administrators told the Chesapeake City Council at a Wednesday night retreat.
The shortfall would include about $14 million to implement the second phase of a pay plan for city employees. The city also expects increases in health care, utilities, energy and other costs.
Virginia Beach could be facing an $81.2 million budget shortfall. But that figure includes estimates from the Virginia Beach schools.
Chesapeake's $30 million figure does not include school estimates.
Deputy City Manager Betty J. Meyer said the shortfall could force the city to look at reducing some service s. City officials will look to the council for guidance, she said. Staff cuts could come in areas where services are reduced, she added.
"If a combination of state cuts or additional local cuts were significant, we would look at a reduction of force," Meyer said.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
Keep Adding
Unbelievable - just keep adding more folks to the top and no additions to the bottom of the police force, and that's just the one city department that makes the news. How many officers could be added for the salary of one major? Of course what the heck - look how much they gave for the study to say they needed to fund another such position. Who knows where it all stops. Sometimes one has to step away from studies that suggest this and that be done. Let's face it - the folks doing the study do not have to pay for their results - the tax payer does.
To My Fellow City Employees
We ain't gettin' no compression raises.
All the cities and the state...
...thought the good times would keep on rolling indefinitely. VB, Norfolk, Ports, Chesapeake, as well as Newport News and Virginia are falling short of "projections". Yet, projects like LRT seem to be moving along, despite bleeding lots of $$$, (even VA is gulping the The Tide Kool-Aid, calling the second most important transit project in the Commonwealth behind Dulles Metro extension) so you wonder if they (Norfolk and VB) are really hurting, or if its just an excuse to slack off on city services and raise taxes. I just ignore these stories unless it says "layoffs", which only P-town has done. Hampton is a pretty lame place, but they are looking like geniuses now since they aren't really blowing their money on anything new (Pen Town Center is mostly financed through Mall Properties of NY) and the Power Plant debacle and HR Convention Center is behind them.
Suprise suprise
Ludwig von Mises once said:
“It is not real prosperity. It is illusory prosperity. It did not develop from an increase in economic wealth. Rather, it arose because the credit expansion created the illusion of such an increase. Sooner or later it must become apparent that this economic situation is built on sand.” and
“The sooner the credit expansion policy is brought to a stop, the less harm will have been done by the misdirection of entrepreneurial activity, the milder the crisis and the shorter the following period of economic stagnation.”
Sadly, we've kept it going for a long, long time now.
He was right back then and he is right now. Too bad nobody has time to read a book anymore.
Start At The Top
How about reducing the salaries of top management personnel that are 2,3 and 4 times more than the median income of our area. Some of these salaries are larger than those paid in larger cities that have 8-10 million taxpayers and the positions are of similar description. Here in Chesapeake we have roughly 250,000 taxpayers. It's time to trim the fat, and let's start at the top of the ladder.