“To adjust the budget in order to meet the mandated Council budget reductions I accepted recommendations from each city department to close the budget gap created by the council's adopted budget ordinance. Every city department is impacted by the reductions. In this specific case, I have been assured by Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran that the neighborhood should not experience any shortage of service. My administration and the Council have worked hard to upgrade and improve Fire and police services and I am saddened that the Council’s budget decisions will make it very hard to continue the city's investment in this area.
All of these decisions are made as the nation and cities across America are reeling from the current economic crisis. I was willing to risk ridicule to preserve the financing for core city services by proposing a modest tax increase (about $38 for a $250,000 home) after cutting tens of millions of dollars from the budget and recommending new revenue sources; both of which the Council accepted. Unfortunately we differed on the tax increase. Regrettably the Council didn't make the budget reductions as they could have. That responsibility was passed on to me. There doesn't seem to be a victory in this for me or the administration. The unanimous vote of the Council could have been a unanimous vote for a balanced budget with their preferred reductions instead they punted."
-Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin
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