Atlanta Mayor Faces Budget Woes Head-on

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin is tackling her city’s budget woes head on, buckling down on public spending.
Atlanta Mayor Faces Budget Woes Head-on
TOUGH DAY: Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin speaks of the city’s budget problems on Wednesday. (Mary Silver/The Epoch Times)
Mary Silver
1/28/2009
Updated:
1/28/2009
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/Shirley-Franklin_medium.jpg"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/Shirley-Franklin_medium.jpg" alt="TOUGH DAY:  Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin speaks of the city's budget problems on Wednesday. (Mary Silver/The Epoch Times)" title="TOUGH DAY:  Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin speaks of the city's budget problems on Wednesday. (Mary Silver/The Epoch Times)" width="300" class="size-medium wp-image-64542"/></a>
TOUGH DAY:  Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin speaks of the city's budget problems on Wednesday. (Mary Silver/The Epoch Times)
ATLANTA—Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin stands amidst a city badly strapped for cash. With only one year left in her last term, she’s attacking the problem head on, calling into account the State of Georgia and buckling down on public spending.

Franklin is faulting the State of Georgia for keeping a reserve of money while not funding essential services like mental health, trauma centers, clean water, and light rail.  At City Hall on Wednesday, she counted off faults on her fingers: “No city can be successful unless it is safe. Has clean water. Clean air. Good educational system. Four things that if not funded will fail.”

“How can you have a reserve fund when you don’t have a network of trauma centers?”  

She said that Atlanta residents need to make hard choices for clean air and transportation. Because Atlanta has term limits for mayors, she said she felt forced to make hard choices early.  

Clean water was one of her priorities. She expected to have eight years, and she tackled Atlanta’s crumbling, spill-plagued sewer system early in her first term. It was incurring federal fines.  Storm water overwhelmed the system and dumped raw sewage into the Chattahoochee River, and sometimes into houses and neighborhoods. She said she is proud to be known as the “Sewer Mayor.” Almost half of the $4 billion infrastructure upgrade is complete, according to her, and it has been on time and on budget.  It should be complete by 2014.

Franklin’s first term ends in 2010.  The city was in a fiscal crisis when she was elected, and it is a fiscal crisis now, like many other cities.  She has laid off  workers and  furloughed police and firefighters. Emergency response times have increased. Citizens have complained about inadequate police protection, especially after the recent unsolved murder of a popular bartender.

In response to a question about police recruitment, she said, “We have recruited 200 cops.  It’s a great time to recruit. People want jobs with benefits. Atlanta has needed 2,000 cops for 20 years.  We don’t get there because we are not willing to do what needs to be done.”

Yet she is “determined not to leave the city financially crippled as I found it in 2002.”  

Her administration cut $100 million from the Atlanta budget.  She wants the federal government to guarantee city loans so that cities can go to Wall Street for loans for infrastructure repairs.  

Cities are “frozen out now,” she said.  

She again blasted the state government for avoiding tough choices.  “Georgia cannot compete if it keeps refusing to fund light rail and a better educational and health system… Somebody has to stand up and say I’m going to risk my political career.  How can we say we’re a great state?”

The mayor’s job is not for the faint of heart or the thin skinned, said Franklin.  

“I brag, I boast about success with water or sewers. The good news is, I do what I believe  in.  The bad news is, I do what I believe in. Let the chips fall where they may, I get up every morning knowing God loves me and my mama loves me.”
Mary Silver writes columns, grows herbs, hikes, and admires the sky. She likes critters, and thinks the best part of being a journalist is learning new stuff all the time. She has a Masters from Emory University, serves on the board of the Georgia chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and belongs to the Association of Health Care Journalists.
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