Boardman finances defy paper’s simple explanation

Boardman finances defy paper’s simple explanation

EDITOR:

For decades the philosophy of Boardman Township government was to provide service above and beyond the norm. Now, rising expectations and demands by the public to provide them with services, along with the increasing costs, are starting to outstrip the township’s ability to provide them.

Shortly after Kelly Pavlik’s win in Las Vegas a Vindicator editorial read, “Anybody who thinks he hasn’t earned that money has never taken a punch.” Shortly after 9/11, The Vindicator was at the forefront in organizing a parade in Boardman as a tribute to our safety forces. In 2001, the media and the general public say they’re heroes. Now they want to pay them like chumps. As with Pavlik, and setting budget shortfalls aside for a moment, anybody who thinks that members of our safety forces don’t deserve their pay “has never taken a punch.”

On March 1, The Vindicator essentially placed the blame for Boardman’s fiscal decline and the rejection of the 4.1-mill levy on the labor unions. The media reports that the fiscal officer projected this problem five years ago. Regardless, and this is just a partial list, more people were hired, the budget was continually allowed to be drained by the imperatives of technology, accreditation and a police substation were pursued despite a lack of interest by most, the township administrator was fired instead of letting him finish out his contract, a police chief was railroaded and browbeaten for disciplining an employee and fighting his grievances while simultaneously attempting to reduce the demand for service on the department by addressing issues stemming from a so-called “dysfunctional criminal justice system,” a $70,000 performance audit was authorized which any clear-thinking high school student could have done as it served only to affirm what we already knew, the new police chief is granted a salary 20 percent higher than the previous one, and there has been continued approval for overtime expenditures to foster events like parades and car shows at taxpayers’ expense. The cost of overtime alone for the annual hot rod event over the 20 years it came here was in the area of $500,000. None of these expenses resulted solely because of demands by the labor unions.

If you talk to enough people, you’ll learn that the discord between the trustees played a role in the failure of the levy. In addition, you cannot expect approval of a levy while experiencing falling property values and when other forms of taxation, such as a JEDD, are looming overhead. Again, none of this was promulgated solely by “public employees refusing to face economic reality.”

KIM R. KOTHEIMER

Boardman

X The writer is a retired Boardman police officer.

Bus service is important

EDITOR:

I was really disappointed when the WRTA bus company lost the levy. People should realize how important the bus is to the disabled and handicapped and other people who don’t have cars.

I’m disabled and need the bus to go to work. There will be one day that someone will need the bus, and the bus won’t be around for them. The WRTA is important to me and other people.

The bus drivers are really nice people and without them a lot of us will be out of work. We need the buses to get around. People who have cars don’t realize how important the bus really is to people who don’t have cars.

I think that the bus levy should have passed.

JEANIE GERLACH

Youngstown