The interesting part of the press conference was the two mayors reminiscing over their time in office. They recall their times bargaining with the unions: how they "always ended with a handshake" and said Toledo didn't need Issue 2's reforms for future negotiations, either. The two ex-mayors said Issue 2 would be bad for Toledo's middle class.
What they won't say is that Ford and Finkbeiner spent the city into deficit on their watch. In January 2002, when Jack Ford took office, Toledo over 33 million dollars in reserve in the city's general and rainy day fund. Four years later, when Finkbeiner took over from Ford, this amount had been reduced to about 16 million combined. When Mike Bell took office he inherited a multi-million dollar deficit.
| GENERAL FUND | RAINY DAY | |
| 2001 | 19,494,000 | 14,398,000 |
| 2002 | 16,807,000 | 11,215,000 |
| 2003 | 13,420,000 | 8,860,000 |
| 2004 | 9,300,000 | 4,590,000 |
| 2005 | 10,771,000 | 5,418,000 |
| 2006 | 10,792,000 | 5,742,000 |
| 2007 | 12,633,000 | 6,242,000 |
| 2008 | 4,391,000 | 2,000,000 |
| 2009 | -8,020,000 | 465,000 |
| 2010 | -8,612,000 | 0 |
The men who left Toledo broke now want to complain about the remedy.
Ford and Finkbeiner don't care about the middle class. They didn't care about them as they spent the city's surplus funds and they don't care now as Toledo faces a deficit. The current system leaves Toledo stuck between two options: lay off employees or raise taxes on those middle class families the two big spending mayors claim to care for. Neither truly cares for the safety of Toledo, either. If they had truly been looking out for the safety of Toledo's citizens, they would have curbed spending long before it reached a crisis level that threatens all services in the city.
Ford said that his experience had consisted of "tough negotiations with unions", but what was the result for the taxpayers of Toledo?
Toledo spends over 11 million dollars each year on pension pick-ups, a total that comes on top of the city's 14 percent contribution share mandated by law. And teachers in the Toledo school system pay nothing toward their health care premium. While the average Toledo family suffers through recession, government employees' unions load up their benefits packages on the backs of private sector workers.
That's the result of "tough negotiations"? Most people have to save their own money in retirement funds, and if they're lucky, their employers might contribute a percentage of that. Toledo city employees don't even pay their full pension share. Even if Issue 2's reforms become law, these employees will still have it far better than the vast majority of private sector workers whose tax dollars pay for their benefits. All that's being asked is some balance in the process.
That's the result of the broken system the spend-happy former mayors spoke in defense of today. Mayor Bell supports Issue 2 because the reforms of Issue 2 give cities the tools needed to rein in excessive benefits and spending. Toledo is mired in red ink because of Ford and Finkbeiner's reckless budgeting, but we can help Toledo and local governments across the state get their financial houses back in order by voting Yes on Issue 2.
I wonder how much the unions contributed to the election campaigns of those spendthrift mayors.
ReplyDeleteIf I find a moment I'll check the secretary of state's web site.
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Interesting. I took a break from the mind numbing project on my desk and checked the Secretary of State's web site.
ReplyDeleteI did a search for Jack Ford and obtained a list of contributions to his campaign (s). I downloaded this list to excel and sorted it for clarity.
The list provided by the web site totaled $283,877. Of that 65% was from "non individuals" so let's not call Mr Ford a man of the people.
I then did a quick review of the non individuals, searching for contributors whose names make it obvious they are a union. My quick list revealed that $55,400 was given to Mr Ford's campaign by unions.
the civil service unions were well represented. The FOP, The Teachers and AFSCME were all included on the list.
so basically Mr Ford owed his job, in large measure, to the very unions with whom he was supposed to negotiate.
Of course things were done with a handshake in Mr Ford's day, the negotiations were simply a payback to the unions for an investment they made in Mr Ford.
I can provide the excel spreadsheet if you like.
Oh one other thing: Paul Krugman's former employer, Enron, appears on the list three times and the total contribution from that company was 1500.
Nice, huh?
This is who stands up for the unions. Mr Ford is little more than a marionette.
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