Atlanta CFO troubled by mayoral candidates' promises

By ERIC STIRGUS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta’s chief financial officer is worried about promises being made by some mayoral candidates.

Crime is the top concern for many voters, and all three leading candidates say they will hire more police officers. CFO Jim Glass said such changes will require more revenue, which the city doesn’t have, or deep cuts to other city departments.

“It’s hard for me to understand where those cuts would go,” Glass said at a news conference Tuesday where he and Mayor Shirley Franklin gave a financial update.

The mayor has made cuts to virtually every city department and laid off several hundred employees since May 2008 to offset major drops in revenue, which Franklin has blamed on the recession. The mayor said Tuesday that Atlanta is on the “slow end” of an economic recovery, but revenues are $2.6 million below projections since July.

Councilwoman Mary Norwood used the phrase “Enron-type accounting” at a recent debate to describe what’s going on inside City Hall, which drew the ire of Franklin, who said last week it suggested criminal activity within the finance department. Norwood later apologized for using the phrase, but stood by her criticism of past accounting practices in city government.

Glass wrote a four-page letter dated Friday to the City Council that outlined his concerns.

“Any proposal to increase the public safety budget -- no matter how well-intentioned -- ignores certain fundamental realities,” wrote Glass, who plans to leave office at the end of the year. “The city is revenue constrained and we will continue to face challenges absent any new sources of revenue in the future.”

Glass did not name names.

Councilwoman Felicia Moore, whose legislation for a five-year financial stabilization plan for the city was approved Monday by the City Council, is also unhappy about what’s she hearing from the candidates.

“Either they are severely misinformed or they are severely misleading the public,” said Moore, who’s attended several debates.

All four leading candidates denied they are making unrealistic promises.

City Council President Lisa Borders held a news conference Tuesday to promote her plan to hire a firm to collect sales tax revenue for Atlanta, instead of relying on the state, which the plan’s supporters said does not collect about 20 percent of that money.

“In Atlanta alone, a modest 10 percent increase in sales tax collection would equal $10 million, enough to add 50 new police officers,” said Borders, who argues she’s the only candidate who has proposed ideas with ways to pay for them.

Candidate Jesse Spikes has not offered specifics about how many officers he’d hire nor ideas for new revenue. Spikes says he’ll focus on removing waste and getting more federal aid for Atlanta.

“It’s been what I’ve been saying all along [about the other candidates]. Promises, promises, promises. Show me the money,” Spikes said in support of the Glass letter.

Former state Sen. Kasim Reed stood by earlier statements that he will hire 750 police officers in his first term.

Reed says he can pay for some of those officers with a portion of the money from this year’s property tax increase, by collecting an estimated $20 million a year in fees he says the city does not collect and reducing overtime in non-public safety departments.

“I do not have a laundry list of big-ticket [spending] items,” he said in an interview.

Reed said he would look at spending in the Information Technology department, whose budget has more than doubled since the 2004 budget from nearly $13 million to the current 12-month spending plan of about $27 million.

Norwood, who’s also talked about the IT department and wants to hire more police officers, did not specifically address the concerns in the Glass letter. She said in a statement she wants a performance review of each city department.

“Until we know how much money we really have and how much we really owe ... it is unrealistic to think that the city can increase the public safety budget without first finding new revenue streams or making significant budget cuts,” Norwood said.