Taxpayers Weigh-In On Proposed Mayor 2013 Budget
Many taxpayers made their case as to why more city money should go elsewhere.
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Omaha, NE --The public got it's turn Tuesday night to pick apart Mayor Jim Suttle's proposed 2013 budget with a fine tooth comb. A crowd of people packed into the Omaha City Council Legislative Chambers. Some were upset with Mayor Suttle's decision to increase some of his staffs' salary. Most taxpayers urged the city council to put their tax dollars to better use.
Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom's Doug Kagan didn't hold back when sounding off over the budget. "This budget is irresponsible particularly because of selective loaded pay increases," said Kagan.
Marty Brown studied the proposal very carefully. He said, "I may not be a Warren Buffett or a Paul Ryan, but I do know this doesn't tell the whole story in looking at these pages. First of all for example, Mayors Office has one less employee but the budget is up 51-thousand. The City Clerk is up 9.7% but no increase in personnel since 2011."
Many taxpayers made their case as to why more city money should go elsewhere.
Mike Cassling said,"The music hall is home to thousands and thousands of youth and our future generations for dance, music, recitals and so forth. They call it home. If we get rid of the music
hall it's basically like taking away the softball and baseball or soccer fields for our youth."
Tuesday night, several hotel managers came to the meeting asking for more money in the Omaha Convention Bureau's budget. "We would like to strongly recommend a portion of the approximately 31-million dollars of occupation taxes collected by the hotels, restaurants, car rentals etc be re-invested in promoting our great city," said Susan Madsen.
Perhaps the biggest plea from Omaha taxpayers is funding the cities program to demolish dangerous homes. Willie Barney said there are over 700 homes in the city waiting to be torn down. "The problem is getting worse I'm glad to see that the Mayor is taking the first step to try to increase the
dollars to try and get rid of some of these homes but we have a long way to go," Barney said.
Helen Seward not only wants to see the homes come down, but improvements made for kids.
"If they were demolished what that land could be used for, we need more parks and playgrounds for our young people," said Seward.
Omaha City Council will vote on the proposed budget during the August 28th meeting.
Reported By: Liz Dorland, ldorland@action3news.com
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