By SCOTT SMITH, Kokomo Tribune staff writer
Faced with an estimated $2.5 million budget shortfall, the Kokomo Common Council decided Monday to axe the Kokomo Early Learning Center, the only city-subsidized daycare center in the state.
"It's not a question of 'do you want it to close?' It's a question of whether it's an amenity we can afford," Councilman Mike Karickhoff, R-At Large, said during Monday's formal finance committee meeting.
Since 1972, when the city founded the center, through 2007, upwards of $700,000 a year was spent subsidizing the center, which currently serves about 50 children.
Council President Mike Kennedy's father was on council when the center was founded, and Monday, Kennedy said it would be a painful decision to end the service.
"These are the kind of things, that when you have lots of money, and income, coming in, and everybody's working ... then you can do lots of things," Kennedy said. "What hurts me the most is that all of these dollars we're talking about are tied to somebody."
But Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight has been besieged by national and international media as Kokomo has become a symbol of sorts for the dying American auto industry.
This week, CNN and the BBC are expected in town, "and nobody wants to talk about anything good," Goodnight said Monday.
With an unemployment rate reaching 17 percent, and a local economy more dependent on American auto manufacturing than any other local economy in the nation, the City of Firsts is literally shrinking.
Necessarily, local government must shrink as well, Goodnight indicated Monday.
With 40 fewer full-time employees than when he took office 16 months ago, Goodnight said the city is still delivering needed services with fewer employees.
Monday, however, Goodnight laid out close to a dozen ways the city is trying to cut costs, including ending funding for the Early Learning Center and ending ambulance service through the Kokomo Fire Department.
Those two moves alone would save the city about $1.1 million of the $2.5 million it needs to cut next year, city controller Jim Brannon estimated.
Finding the rest of the needed savings could prove extremely difficult, even with some expected federal stimulus money on the way.
Several of the options laid out would involve the city divesting itself of current services, including:
• Creating a new countywide taxing district to fund operations of the Kokomo Municipal Airport. Brannon said the earliest that could happen would be mid-2011, not early enough to help with the 2010 budget crunch.
• Turning over the city's Dixon Road Reclaim Center to the Howard County Recycling District.
• Creating a new interlocal agreement that would give Howard County government full control of emergency dispatch services. Combining the dispatch operations (the city and county currently both operate out of the same center, but have separate budgets and personnel) is something city and county officials have batted since Kokomo Mayor Jim Trobaugh's administration.
• Looking at the way the city's Weights and Measures department is funded (i.e. seeking county help) and cutting costs at the joint city/county Plan Commission office.
"These other things, we don't know how much money they're going to save us," said Councilwoman Cindy Sanders, R-5th. "We want to make sure trash is picked up, and we've already cut back on buying equipment the city needs. We want to be in a position so we can do the things the city needs to do."
The council will hold one more meeting to discuss the budget dilemma - possibly next Monday - before waiting for administration officials to produce their 2010 budget proposal.
But the Early Learning Center's fate seems certain, and the fate of more than a dozen city firefighters could soon be decided by the administration.
With 71 percent of the city budget tied to wages and benefits, administration officials argue it's difficult to come up with anywhere close to the needed spending cuts without cutting more personnel.
Going around the council conference table Monday, at least seven of the nine members expressed a desire to end further funding for the center. And of the seven, at least six said they'd prefer to do it as soon as possible.
"Otherwise, you're just prolonging the inevitable," said Councilman Ralph Baer, R-6th.
Councilwoman Janie Young, D-3rd, was the only voice in favor of keeping the center, and Monday, she limited her comments to a request any decision be put off while friends of the center attempt to find ways to save it.
She said about $20,000 in financial commitments have been made in the past several weeks by friends of the center, after she took the cause to a group of influential local pastors.
"You've almost set it up to fail," she said.