We also should have been spending more money on maintaining existing infrastructure instead of squandering it on $3 million dollar streets to nowhere;
The next mayor of Sioux Falls could face some tough decisions unless sales tax revenues begin growing at a healthy pace by next year.
Even rosy revenue forecasts call for the city to use a generous amount of reserve funds over the next several years to keep up with growth in the city’s general operating fund, which pays for basic services such as public safety and snow plowing. A new mayor takes office next spring.
And Finance Director, Eugene ‘Montgomery Burns’ Rowenhorst wants to give his advice to the next mayor;
The city’s revenue forecasts call for a 4 percent rate of growth in sales taxes next year, and 6 percent each year following 2010. Absent that type of growth, city Finance Director Eugene Rowenhorst predicts the next mayor will be forced to find “expense controls.”
Kyle Helseth, deputy director of the Minnehaha County Equalization Department, notes that there is an upside to slower growth in building permits. The city would have to spend less on new streets and utilities.
the next mayor, who will be elected in April, could face the prospect of making painful cuts.