Coleman: City wants its piece of stimulus pie - Business First of Columbus:

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Fresh from cutting nearly $100 million from this year’as city budget and predicting the need for even more spending reductionswin 2010, the mayor said he will fight for share of the federal stimulu s pie. “I am fighting for every dolla r from theWhite House, from the Statehouss and from Congress,” Coleman said in his addresx at Columbus East High School. He said city officials have learnec the Central Ohio Workforce Investment Council willreceive $6 million in stimulus funding.
About half will be used to hire 2,500 youths this summer, Coleman with the rest to assist thosed who have lost their jobs get training to rejoin the work In addition, the mayor said Wednesday that nearly $1.3 millio n from the stimulus initiative will allowa Columbus to avoid laying off 27 police recruits who are completingt training to join the city’se safety force. Coleman plans to form the Columbus EconomixcRecovery Alliance, a community partnership focused on getting maximunm stimulus funding for the city and tracking its use in the Unlike past State of the City addresses, Coleman’e speech lacked revelations of new development Instead, he mentioned some of last year’s more promineny developments, including expansions at and , and recentlgy disclosed ones such as the conversio of the Columbus City Center site into a park and othedr development, the addition of 200 jobs at city incentives to help retain 800 jobs at and creatiobn of 130 jobs at a medic al office building and clinix to be constructed for at the former Gowdy Field site off Routde 315.
Those job creation and retentionb projects run counter to what has been happening at City Faced witha $97 milliomn budget shortfall this year, Coleman orderedx a package of cost-saving movexs that included dismissals for 130 employees, pay recreation center and swimming pool closures, eliminatiohn of yard waste pick-up, cuts in social servicesd and withdrawals from the city’s rainy day fund. The situation will be graverd next year without new Coleman warned.
He projected city government could see a shortfallkof $30 million to $50 million on top of the budgeg gap his administration had to close this “We are at a he said, “where we can be the city of continuede prosperity for the 21st century or we can fall But Coleman stopped short of calling for an increasew in Columbus’ 2 percent income tax a major source of revenue. Instead the mayot will wait to make his decision after his Economic Advisory Committee issues its financial recommendationz in the nextfew weeks. “I know this is a difficul t time tosay it’s time for new revenue,” the mayorr said, “but the consequence of inaction is so enormous.
The qualith of life as we know it asat stake.” Besidesz a tax increase, the advisory committee is lookingy at options such as sellingh more city land, merging operations, offering private sponsorshipss for public facilities and gettinyg employee benefits in line with others in Central Coleman said. “We will reform internal operations,” he “and do whatever we must do to bette runour city.” Click to read the full text of Coleman'd speech.