Summertime

As we head towards Memorial Day weekend, considered the unofficial start of Summer, we need to get ready for another marker of Summer in Tiger Town, the City of Massillon's annual budget crisis.

Here is how it works. City Council, being obedient rubber stamps, approve the Mayor's budget pretty much as submitted. In order to make the math work, so that expenditures do not exceed revenue, the Mayor does not budget for things like police and fire overtime. Hopefully there won't be any crimes, or fires during off hours. We suspect that may not be the case.

Around June or so, Auditor Jayne Ferrero reports that the City is (pick a number) short financially. Massillon's Mayor for Life, never one to let the buck stop at his desk, asks the City Auditor to recommend spending cuts, and asks council to "plug the budget hole." He acts like it is not his problem. He seems to forget he submitted the budget that was never really balanced in the first place.

Making cuts is the Mayor's job, not the Auditor's job. The Auditor is not the City's administrator. The Auditor merely pays the bills and tracks the money. The Mayor, with approval of City Council, decides how and where that money is spent. The Mayor is responsible for running the city, not the Auditor. Of course making cuts is not politically popular, and you don't get to be Mayor for Life by making unpopular cuts. The Auditor takes the bait and makes recommendations for spending cuts, because the Mayor tells her to.

The City normally dodges the bullet financially because a wealthy person dies, and they receive the inheritance tax, or a building owned by the Parks and Recreation Board burns down, and the Mayor grabs the money from the parks, or the voters pass "Electric Aggregation," and the City gets a "Civic Grant" from the utility company.

Relying on death and disaster to survive financially does not seem like a prudent way to manage a city. Mayor Cicchinelli's luck has been good lately. Our community will be wondering what happens when it finally runs out.