Let's Get Fiscal

To what should come to the surprise of absolutely nobody, the Auditor of the State of Ohio, Dave Yost, put our beloved fair city, what our former mayor called the "Industrial Crossroads of Ohio," what our current mayor calls the "City of Champions," into the category of "fiscal emergency."

In lay terms, it means we are broke.

Extraordinarily broke.

So broke, the State of Ohio has to step in.

Apparently, a $2.6 million dollar budget deficit is haunting Tigertown.

It looks like the chickens have finally come home to roost.

This monstrous budget deficit is the result of the vat of red ink that our Once & Future Mayor for Life, the Extraordinary One, Frank Cicchinelli left for his successor, the Usurper, Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry.

"When Kathy Catazaro-Perry takes over as the city’s mayor early next month, she will not have much time for on-the-job training before having to jump head-first into the vat of budgetary red ink inherited from the current administration" (Editorial, The Independent, November 30, 2011).

That can't be right.

The Extraordinary One left our fair city in extraordinary shape when he departed.

Didn't he?

The dollars were supposed to be there, remember?

"We'll be able to pay for these increases," Cicchinelli said. "I'm not concerned about it. We will be there. I feel confident the dollars will be there to make it through this year and we'll have the dollars to make it through next year" (The Independent, July 6, 2010).

See? The dollars are supposed to be there.

This has to be Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry's fault.

Otherwise it would be the Extraordinary One's fault.

And we know that can't possibly be the case.

Otherwise his Massillon miracle, his development schemes and dreams were merely sand castles swept out with the tides, propped up by vast quantities of our tax dollars.

Massillon has a $2.6 million dollar budget deficit.

How, and when did this happen?

Let's check in with the City's Chief Financial Officer, Auditor Jayne Ferrero;

“Until we change something on the revenue side, that ($2.6 million) number will not change,” Ferrero said. “That’s where we were at last year and the year before..." (The Independent, September 14, 2013).

Let us examine Auditor Ferrero's comments.

Massillon will be $2.6 million dollars in the red at the end of this year, 2013.

"That's where we were at last year..."

OK, at the end of 2012 (last year), we were $2.6 million dollars in the hole.

"... and the year before"

The year before was 2011, the last year of the reign of our Extraordinary Mayor for Life, Frank Cicchinelli.

Let's focus on the "... and the year before" part.

So, according to Auditor Ferrero, we were $2.6 million dollars short at the end of 2011, as the Extraordinary One departed, however temporarily, from the scene.

And at the end of 2012, the first year of the Usurper, Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry, we were still $2.6 million dollars short.

And at the end of 2013, the second year of the Usurper, we will still be $2.6 million dollars short.

So, according to Auditor Ferrero's comments, Kathy Catazaro-from-Perry essentially balanced her budgets (2012 & 2013). Her only problem was that she inherited a $2.6 million dollar shortfall from her predecessor.

The deficit didn't disappear in the last two years, but it didn't get worse.

It is clear Massillon's current chief executive has made the difficult choices to stop the City's bleeding. Layoffs and cuts are never popular with the worker bees.

It's a shame her predecessor did not deal with the problems he so clearly created in the same fashion.

Because if he had, the State of Ohio probably wouldn't be putting us in fiscal emergency today.

And we wouldn't be broke.

Extraordinarily broke.