In an effort to burnish his legacy in his final year in office, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced on Friday that the city had more money in its rainy day fund than it had ever had before.
“Today, we are a national model of fiscal responsibility,” Reed said in announcing the $175 million in reserves. “We’ve achieved a longtime goal.”
Reed also said new Census data shows the city’s population has risen to more than half a million people with an increase of 40,000 residents in 2015. That’s the last year there are numbers available.
“We are an ascendant city,” he said.
When Reed took office in 2010, he said, the city had $7.4 million in reserves. He emphasized that the increase came without raising property taxes or water rates, and said Atlanta is in “the strongest financial shape it’s been in in 40 years.”
In addition to the increase in reserves, Reed said, Atlanta's credit rating is up and crime is down. He said the recent sale of Underground Atlanta will take an additional $8 million a year off the city's balance sheet.
"I don't think it's a bad thing to point out the pretty solid work that's being done in the midst of tumult," Reed said.
That tumult? The collapse last week of a portion of I-85 and a federal bribery investigation at city hall.
Reed, who said he had not yet decided who to endorse in the fall election to replace him, took the opportunity at the lectern to make sure Atlanta residents knew what he had accomplished — in case his successor stumbles.
“It’s important to put on the record where things are right now,” he said.
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