LOUISVILLE BUDGET SHORTFALL: WHERE DID IT GO?

The Louisville budget all of a sudden is in trouble. The estimates of cuts range from $20-45 million depending on which report you listen to. Mayor Abramson has decided to take a 10% pay cut for the rest of the year, which essentially is meaningless considering there is only a month left in the year, but this is only from his salary from our taxes. Even if he is basing this cut on the Metro annual year which ends June 30 it really is meaningless.

Does anyone want to ask about his other pay such as from GLI or perhaps other board seats? His income is not just derived from a salary we pay him. Far from it. As Mayor he gets money from everywhere.

The facts are simple Abramson has squandered money from our taxes and needs to be held accountable. His personal field of dreams is making a mockery of prudent financial responsibility.

Mayor Abramson is on record as saying he will look to cut whatever is necessary and our public safety positions, fire, police, EMS, etc are not excluded. Seems times are dire indeed, but there is one problem.

Over the past 3 years according to budget reports, http://www.louisvilleky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/11CE1ECC-48D2-438F-A3C5-F6994DAA7E38/0/FY07CAFR.pdf, our police alone have been UNDER budget by $35 million!

Where did the money go?

That is the real question.

When reviewing the budget there are tens of millions of dollars spent on "claims" against the City each year. There are also budgetary items for outside services in the millions. How much does Jerry pay for his buddy lawyers at our expense to keep them happy. How much do we actually pay for lawsuits against the City after Abramson spends thousands on legal fees to his buddies to exhaust all avenues including the Supreme Court, as in the case of the firefighters, that he knows we have to pay.

Does he intentionally run up the legal bills as patronage for his buddies at Frost, Brown, and Todd? It would seem so. Remember the internal memos from here: www.abramsonuncovered.com.

There is an old saying in law that no one gets paid until the attorneys do. It would seem to be true in the case of Louisville Metro and Mayor Abramson.

When we look at the big picture, and we must in these trying times start doing that, we have to see the fallacies in our leadership and our money.

The Abramson machine is destroying the economic fabric of our City. We continue to lose good paying jobs in lieu of low paying service economy jobs. Of course this hurts our tax base from withholding taxes etc. That is common sense isn't it?

We give Cordish Group $37 million for a POSSIBLE investment, with no guarantees in our Louisville, that ties up land development for years whether they do anything or not. Immediately after railroading this financial package through then we say we have a budget shortfall and problem.

Not to mention that Abramson knew that the money to be paid to the firefighters from a problem HE created and continued to lose in the courts on was looming. This to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

How can you give away $37 million on a pipe dream with no guarantees knowing that we will have to pay at least that much on a court case he knew we would lose?

Now as a repercussion he wants to possibly cut these basic services that we deserve.

With the Police department, fire department, and EMS ALL coming in under budget year after year saving this government money each and every year this would seem just another fallacy of the Abramson gestapo machine.

It is time to get serious and check out the budget and ask questions.

With millions saved by our public safety departments it would seem they earn their keep and we do not deserve lesser service because the Mayor does not live within the budget means.

Check out the link provided above. Seriously. There are many questions to be asked of this Mayor.

The first is a simple one.

Where did our money go?