Niles council must reject mayor’s fiscal ‘shell game’

The quotation marks around the words shell game in the headline are designed to do two things:

1. Emphasize the triviality of the proposal presented by Niles Mayor Thomas Scarnecchia to reduce city government’s general-fund deficit.

2. Give credit to the individual who came up with that description of what the first-year mayor is attempting to do with Niles’ fiscal emergency.

City council will meet Wednesday in special session to vote on Scarnecchia’s plan, but if last week’s response from lawmakers is any indication, it will be dead on arrival. As well it should.

“This is a shell game,” quipped Councilman Ryan McNaughton, D-at large, during last Wednesday’s council meeting. “We’re cutting off the head of the dandelion and not cutting out the root.”

And what is the root of Niles’ long-standing fiscal collapse? Simple: Government has been spending more money than it has been taking in.

The declaration of fiscal emergency by Ohio Auditor of State David Yost in October 2014 came with a statutorily mandated oversight commission that took control of the city’s finances.

In order to have the emergency lifted, the red ink in the general fund must be eliminated and the mayor and council must present the commission with a five-year operating budget that is in balance each year.

When he ran for office, Scarnecchia charged that longtime Mayor Ralph Infante had mismanaged the city’s finances and had failed to face the economic realities confronting Niles.

The residents obviously agreed because the former council member won the Democratic nomination and went on to win the general election.

But, since taking office in January, Scarnecchia has shown himself to be just as inept as Infante in dealing with the budget.

There are only two ways for government to balance its operating fund: cut expenditures; increase revenue.

In March, the voters approved a 0.5-percent income tax that is expected to generate $2 million for the police and fire departments. The mayor pledged to bring back officers and others laid off because of Niles’ financial collapse. The new money will start coming in next year.

The 2,000-plus-vote margin of victory reflected residents’ desire for police protection and fire safety.

PUBLIC SUPPORT LACKING

But as the large crowd at last week’s council meeting made clear, there is little public support for the games being played by the mayor with the city’s revenue-generating enterprise funds.

Scarnecchia and Service Director James DePasquale recommended the transfer of four park and engineering department employees to the street, water and sewer departments. They also want enterprise-fund money to pay for four permanent positions currently unfilled and unfunded in the light department.

The proposal submitted by the administration to council is nothing more than a refusal by the chief executive to deal with the city’s fiscal crisis by reducing the cost of government.

For instance, it should anger private- sector workers in Niles that those on the public payroll still do not pay for their health-care coverage.

Here’s how Tim Lintner, one of the city’s state-appointed financial supervisors, recently characterized the situation: “At this point, free health care is a dinosaur.”

Lintner noted that the city has saved about $1.3 million on health care as a result of union concessions. However, more needs to be done.

The budgetary expert put the city’s fiscal crisis in perspective when he said that employee costs – payroll and benefits – make up 85 percent of spending.

We aren’t going to suggest that the mayor’s refusal to look seriously at across-the-board reductions in the payroll is politically motivated, but it does raise a question of whether he has the intestinal fortitude to govern a city that is in fiscal emergency.

Indeed, the current projected deficit for 2016 is $130,000, but state officials aren’t sure about that figure because Niles Treasurer Robert Swauger has failed to reconcile financial records.

The chairman of the oversight commission, Quentin Potter, warned recently that the panel could take Swauger to court for not performing his statutory duties.

An outsider looking at the Scarnecchia administration’s response to what’s going on in Niles may well be reminded of that well-known expression, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.”

When city lawmakers meet Wednesday in special session, they should be prepared to hold the mayor’s feet to the fire.