Saturday, July 21, 2007

Sheila Simon Not So Dumb After All

Apparently the city budget, which was one of the issues in last April's election, won't be in as good a shape as was believed last spring. The letter sent out by the city Tuesday give more detail on the 1/2 % increase in the sales tax. While most of the news focused on the proposals funded with monies from the new tax, the letter indicates, without a new revenue source, Carbondale's general fund balance decreases every year from 2008 through 2012(Below in Excel). This is mainly due to contributions to the Carbondale Fire Pension Fund, Police Pension Fund and Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund. Most municipalities "levy a property tax to pay for employee pension costs. However, with no property tax levy, the City of Carbondale has absorbed the increase employee pension costs with the general revenues of the General Fund."

Plus, there are other expenditures such as general maintenance and pay increases that the city has to cover. Without some source of additional funding, and not even including pension liabilities, revenues will exceed expenditures in 2012 by one thousand six hundred and ninety one dollars. While the General Fund will still have in excess of $4 million in it, its balance will have dropped a projected $2.4 million over the five year period.


Upload FileGeneralbudget.xls

Comments:
Its amazing how this has been swept under the rug by the local media, including Chris Wissman who soundly criticized Sheila for telling the truth. Well...the voters got exactly what they selected...someone who is shallow and incapable of telling a straight story.
 
Told you so....Happy sales tax increasing for a football stadium! You made your boat for smearing Sheila, now you lie in it.
 
As one of the administrators of this blog, I must point out that since the author of this post, Scott Thorne, supported Sheila Simon (judging from his comments)it's wrong to say he smeared Sheila. Plus your phrases are infelicitous "made your boat" is an odd phrase to use, if "made your bed" is meant.

Anywho, it's all moot because there will be no more Anonymous or Pseudonymous comments to this blog. Mostly because they are a waste of time.

Bye, bye, Kyle, we hate to say you go, Bye Bye Kyle, good bye.

So long, anonymous.
We'll miss you all, I'm sure.
Why don't you stick your head
out of the closet door?
 
A dim-witted college freshman, telling us in this community how to run the University and City. How entertaining it is, at least, until he spreads lies and distorts the facts.

I might as well say you hate the Salukis, Jerry Kill, and Chris Lowery while I'm at it because if we don't get the new facilities, they go and we lose our best recruiting tool. Just look at the impending enrollment increase because of the Sweet 16. With the impending integrated marketing campaign, it's going to be fun watching you be proven wrong.

Why just not transfer to Eastern and get it done with you pretentious little twit?
 
For your information, my comment was directed at this "community" as a whole, not to Mr. Thorne.

Paladin, instead of personally attacking me, how about coming up with actual facts? I am a registered voter and a permanent resident here, FYI--my voice is equal to yours, you narcissistic moron.
 
Paladin,
do you have any evidence that a winning football (or other sports) team has any affect on recruiting? While it may seem intuitive that a willing sports team draws students, the research I've seen, and I'll post a link to it in another post when I get to it, indicates there's no correlation between successful sports teams and a student's decision to attend a college.

Kyle, you're mixing your metaphors and it's confusing but I applaud you for having the courage to post under your real name.
 
dave, I didn't gather that Kyle was talking to the author of the blog in that comment, rather the people that were involved in smearing Simon at the benefit of Cole. I must add how ridiculous it is that some of you think students will attend school here because of the Sweet 16 and the football team. Most people are smarter than to make one of the most important decisions based on that. As a student I am dissappointed at my university for the message they are sending to students as well as onlookers. Academics should always come first. Thank God the library funding has come through from the state because the school was too busy worrying about football.
 
The simple fact is that students (and their parents) *do* make decisions about where to attend college based on the quality of the facilities - sports and academic - as well as successful sports programs. We may not like it – we may even think that it is stupid – but they do.

I do not support the use of a sales tax to help fund Saluki Way for three reasons:

1.) Sales taxes are highly regressive, hitting lower income people more severely than higher income people

2.) Sales taxes are entirely dependent on the health of the economy. The money generated by this sales tax is estimated. There is no way to know how much it will bring in because any number of factors such as a downturn in the economy, continuing decline in enrollment, or business growth in other nearby communities could affect the amount of money the city brings in as a result. Perhaps some of you have noticed that there is a new Wal-Mart being constructed in Murphysboro. Do you have any doubt that this new Wal-Mart will negatively impact Carbondale's sales tax revenue?

3.) The University has done a terrible job raising money on it's own. Even with this tax, the University still needs to raise at least $20 million to complete the first phase of the project. So far, they have raised less than $1 million. What evidence is there to suggest that this donation by the city will spur others to give, or provide further incentive for the development office led by Ricky McCurry, or Athletic Director Moccia to go out and do a better job to get the rest of the money from private donors?

In addition, we would not likely be in this situation regarding the police station, fire station, public walkways, etc. had the city not repealed the property tax several years ago in order to directly benefit the landlords of this town. Capital and infrastructure improvements are exactly the kind of projects that should be funded by property taxes, not sales taxes, because the residents of the community are the ones who benefit from those items, and they should be the ones to pay for them.
 
Can we ease up on the name calling please? Or at least save it for the playground? Twit? Moron? Sheesh.
 
Sthorne, do a Lexis-Nexis search, there is boatloads of information proving the issue to be a winner as far as big stadiums go. Look at the Big Ten, for example. Do you not know that's what Delyte Morris wanted us to be like?

Kyle: okay, my comments were over the line. I just get tired of the negativity that you constantly elude in your comments. Could we not work together to advance the agenda of an innovative, progressive institution? For the first time in ages, we have a President and a Chancellor who is willing to get people to work together. Why not wish to do the same?

P.S. If you have been here any length of time, you would be delighted that we sacked the far right extremist Wendler and replaced him with the far more personable Trevino. I don't see those guys throwing stones to stop Cole on this one.

If anything, it frees up the rest of the academic projects to get built.
 
Paladin,
I have done a Lexus Nexis search and posted up several links to articles I found in another post. However, the research I've found and posted were in consensus that publicly funded stadiums were at best a breakeven project for the community in that the economic stimulus provided equaled the amount spent in public funds and more often brought in less than spent in public funding. Most of the financial benefit went to the owners of the teams.

If you want to send me links to studies supporting investments in big stadiums, I'll certainly be glad to post them.
 
Ask Terry Clark. He can send you a full list of data.
 
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