Macedonia City residents should vote “NO” on Issue 18. Primarily because, Mayor Joseph Migliorini, City Council President Nick Molnar, Finance Chair Janet Tulley, and Councilman Kevin M. Bilkie cannot justify why the City needs more money from its residents for road improvement and maintenance. Also, given Issue 19 promises an ever-increasing debt and operation deficit for the recreation center, Macedonia voters should decline this tax increase as well.
A Macedonia resident should reasonably expect Mayor Joseph Migliorini, City Council President Nick Molnar, Finance Chair Janet Tulley, and Councilman Kevin M. Bilkie to carefully explain why they need an additional $30,000,000 in tax revenues from residents to fix City roads and operate the recreation center. But the Mayor and majority of City Council have failed to do so.
A Macedonian should also expect that Mayor Migliorini and City Council members Molnar, Tulley, and Bilkie would work together with City Council Vice President David Engle and City Council member Sylvia Hanneken to consider all alternatives before asking residents to increase the local income tax rate from 2 percent to 2.25 percent. They chose not to do so. Instead, at the City Town Hall held on October 13, 2016, Mayor Migliorini and the majority of City Council resorted to name calling and predicted blight if City voters did not pass the tax increases they request.
Issues 18 and 19 have been drawing quite a bit of conversation from Macedonia residents, and for good reason. At the present time Macedonia has a 2 percent municipal income tax rate. Of the 2 percent, 1.75 percent is being used to fund the City’s annual budget that includes road improvements and maintenance. .25 percent is allocated toward retiring the recreation center debt and the recreation center’s operating expenses.
Macedonia Mayor Joseph Migliorini and the majority of City Council want City voters to pass Issue 18 and increase the municipal income tax from 2 percent to 2.25 percent. They say the .25 percent increase shall generate in excess of $10,000,000 in new revenues over 10 years that would go a long way toward reducing the City’s $36,000,000 capital expenditure shortfall, and dramatically improve the City’s roads.
But at the town hall meeting Mayor Migliorini admitted that when the heads of the several City departments presented their $36,000,000 capital expenditure wish list, some of their requests are “puffery.” Then, Mayor Migliorini added that not much of the City’s projected capital expenditure budget was exaggerated.
When a Macedonia resident asked Mayor Migliorini why the City had reduced its road maintenance and improvement budget from $1,474,000 in 2015 to $129,000 in 2016, the Mayor could only respond “the City has no money.” Mayor Migliorini’s response altogether ignored that the City, on average, spent in excess of $1,000,000 on road maintenance and improvements from 2012 through 2015 without asking its residents for a tax increase.
But in 2016, Mayor Migliorini and the majority of City Council chose to re-allocate the City’s road maintenance and improvement budget to City departments’ operating budget. A comparison of the City of Macedonia Departmental Budget shows the Mayor’s budget increased departmental spending from $10,958,443 in 2015 to $12,515,985; an increase of $1,557,542 in department operating budgets.
Mayor Migliorini’s discussion on road improvements altogether ignored that GPD Group – a group of architects, designers, and engineers that represented the City until Migliorini’s election – in 2015 produced a Pavement Condition Report that concluded 82.7 percent of Macedonia’s roads are in very good, good or fair condition.
At the October 13, 2016 town hall meeting Mayor Migliorini and the majority of City Council also asked City voters to renew the .25% recreation center tax so that the City can start a $10,000,000 expansion of the recreation center in Spring 2017. Mayor Migliorini vowed that the City would build an outdoor aquatic center, a new gymnasium, improve park trails and drainage on the ball fields if Macedonians passed Issue 19.
Issue 19 shall generate $21,000,000 for City recreation purposes over a period of twenty years according to Mayor Migliorini and the majority of City Council. But when pressed for more specifics, Mayor Migliorini admitted that approximately one-half of the annual increase in revenues would be used to cover the recreation center’s current $400,000 operating budget deficit. City Council member Bilkie was quick to add that the City projects an annual recreation center operating budget deficit of approximately $1,000,000 once the improvements are completed.
Given Mayor Migliorini’s stated intentions as to how the monies raised by Issue 19 shall be expended and Council member Bilkie’s promise of an ever-increasing debt when the improvements are completed, Issue 19 does not make sense.
