Thanksgiving Reflections

By Gene Krebs. At this time of Thanksgiving, many may not see what of immediate value these past several months of political frenzy have been.

Simple; we live in a self correcting system.

No one conquered us and told us to change our leaders.  We have problems, sure, like any country.  But our difference is that our system, like any good functioning democracy, has a method in place for the voice of the people to be heard.  Not heard evenly, or all with the same decibel level of voice, but a voice.

America has always struggled with the contradiction of being founded both as an economic construct, and a moral construct.  Jamestown was settled by people on the hustle, looking for gold, adventure and fortunes.  The Mayflower Colony was settled by people looking for religious freedom, and religious homogeneity.  Thanksgiving, although begun by the Puritans of Plymouth, now symbolizes to Americans both the moral (we are thankful and humble before God) and economic greed (the closest many will come to Roman standard of gluttony) on one groaning table, surrounded by friends and family.  After all, we never want anyone to eat alone on Thanksgiving, and there is a reason why.  It co-joins both halves of our American experience.

Visiting Springfield, Ohio

By Dawn Larzelere. I recently visited Springfield and made presentations to the Community Leadership Academy and representatives of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce.  During my research leading up to the presentations, I was pleased to see how Springfield and Clark County have capitalized on so many of their prosperity driving assets that we define in our Restoring Prosperity report.

I was also fortunate enough to be invited to attend the Chamber’s groundbreaking for a new downtown park called National Road Commons.   The park, which has been in the works for several years, will eventually span down to Buck Creek and showcases how a community can seize on natural amenities and quality of life attractions to make its urban core stronger.  It is hoped the park will spark additional development including additional restaurants and office and retail space.  Work is expected to be completed by the next summer, in hopes of a formal dedication on July 4.

My presentation from the day can be found on slideshare if you are interested.

Why are our cities shrinking?

The Urbanophile posted an interesting blog this week asking "Are People Really Fleeing Shrinking Cities?".  By looking at data of both out-migration and in-migration, the finding is that out-migration rates in rust belt cities are actually lower than average out-migration rates for cities across the United States.  This means that people are not leaving Shrinking Cities in droves, which is often the vision conjured by the concept of “Shrinking Cities”. The reason that these cities are shrinking is that they have an even lower in-migration rate (extremely low compared to other cities across the country).  Therefore, while the populations are undoubtedly shrinking, it’s not a result of a mass exodus from rust belt cities, but rather a result of very low numbers of new people moving in.  See the original blog post for more data and graphs.

This finding is very important for thinking about the needs and policy implications for these cities.  Clearly much still needs to be investigated and tested to figure out the right steps forward, but having an accurate understanding of the situation is a crucial starting point.

Fiscal Sustainability

By Gene Krebs. Greater Ohio has always had a concern about fiscal sustainability, targeting of resources and fix it first infrastructure reforms.  We feel like this is a natural tie to our smart growth mission.  Last week Michael Peterson of the Peterson Foundation came to Columbus for a press conference to unveil their new effort to get Americans to focus on the nation debt problem.

I was invited to attend and speak and the following is from the data released a the press event.  The total federal debt is now at about 90% of GDP.  Official government statistics from the CBO show that growing to more than 200% by 2040 and 400% in the 2050s.  For reference, Greece hit the wall at 115%.  We will get there in less than 10 years.

Annual interest today is a staggering $200 billion, which is more than the federal government spends on education and infrastructure combined.  By 2027, interest payments becomes the single largest line item in the budget.  By 2055, it literally takes up all federal revenues, leaving nothing for all federal programs.  This powerful data is proof that governance reform is needed immediately.

Columbus on the Record

By Gene Krebs. Over the weekend I was featured on the show Columbus on the Record.  Go to their website and look for the episode broadcast on 11-12-10.  The topics included the 3 C rail and the coming budget problems in Ohio.

Nationally the thought is that states who talk frankly about the upcoming fiscal collapse of their Department of Transportation (DOT) tend to have more success in pushing alternative transportation and addressing the subsidy issue head on, which is that roughly half of the US DOT money comes from sources other than user fees and taxes.  Current ODOT staff never talks about their approaching fiscal collapse.

As far as the budget goes, 85% of state general revenue is sent to locals for everything from schools to welfare.  We could fire all state employees and get only $2 billion savings in the state budget, which is about half what we need to cut each year from a 4 billion dollar shortfall.

We have 41.3 local governments per county compared to the national average of 27.9 , which is perhaps one reason our costs are so much higher in Ohio than the rest of the country, as we rank 9^th in local taxes of the fifty states.

We also talked about the oweNO effort to reign in the federal deficit.  Check out the video for more information.

Trumbull County Forms Land Bank

Congratulations to leaders in Trumbull County who this week voted to approve the formation of a county land bank. This announcement marks the third county land bank formed in Ohio, following both Cuyahoga County and Lucas County.  Trumbull county plans to initially use the land bank to assist in the county's vacant side lot program, which allows residents to purchase vacant land next to their property.  They also hope to work with contractors to help rehabilitate homes in the land bank and place them back up for sale to get them back on the tax rolls. To read more please check out an article from the Warren Tribune Chronicle. 

State Auditor Launches Shared Services Website

The State Auditor recently launched an interactive web-based tool for exploring examples of local government and school shared service partnerships.  The Shared Services Idea Center, developed in partnership with Kent State University, pulls together information provided by local governments, school systems and other community organizations throughout Ohio.  Greater Ohio believes transformative governance reform is part of a three part strategy, along with building on local and regional assets and engaging the federal government, to strengthen Ohio’s regions and restore prosperity to Ohio.  State policies should more aggressively encourage these innovative shared service partnerships as both a way to save money and enhance efficiency.  Please check out the Auditor’s site for more information:   http://www.auditor.state.oh.us/sharedservices/

Impact Ohio

Gene Krebs will be participating on a panel outlining budgetary solutions for Ohio and the pending fiscal collapse at the Impact Ohio conference on Thursday November 4, 2010.  His panel will be made up of various experts and moderated by John Begala of The Center for Community Solutions.  The conference runs from 8:00am - 4:00 pm, and his panel presents at 10:35am.  For more details please go to: http://impactohio.org/.

Gene will be talking about governance reform and better land use as a means to restore prosperity to Ohio.  For those who cannot attend in person, the conference will be rebroadcast across the state oh Ohio on public television.  Check your local station for times.

On the GO in Youngstown

By Alison D. Goebel. Last week I spent two days in Youngstown talking with residents about its downtown.  I hadn't been to Youngstown since 2005 and I was pleasantly surprised by how much it had changed in the last five years.  I remembered downtown Youngstown as a city with lots of buildings and no people—this trip I had trouble finding parking for all my meetings!  Everywhere I ate, there was a line and every time I got lost, there was someone on the street who pointed me in the right direction.

(This is a photo of Youngstown’s oldest restaurant, Cassese’s MVR is a local institution not to be missed.  In the background, in the center of the photo is new privately developed housing for YSU students and to the far right with the plaza space, lights and white pergola is Harrison Common—the cornerstone of the Smoky Hollow neighborhood redevelopment project.)

As a city in transition, Youngstown, and Mahoning Valley more generally, have done a lot to capitalize on their assets. They are taking seriously the need to enhance their quality of place to attract businesses and retain residents.

Catalyzing Local Government Collaboration

Pundits and media reports, including several articles in the Columbus Dispatch this past weekend, calling for significant changes to Ohio's governance structure indicate increasing attention being paid to governance reform recommendations outlined in Greater Ohio's Restoring Prosperity to Ohio agenda.  Governance reform – including recommendations such as rewarding localities that adopt innovative service delivery and shared services -- is a major thrust in the Greater Ohio agenda, and is an area that needs to be addressed urgently and boldly, particularly in light of the current budget problems the state is facing. To capture this growing recognition of the need for local governance reform, we further recommend re-establishment of the former State and Local Government Commission as a logical next step to the Local Government Reform and Collaboration recently released report.

This newly established Commission would research and outline ways to implement key state and local government reforms, such as encouraging shared service delivery collaboration and making regional tax sharing permissive, intended to lead to great cost savings for Ohio taxpayers.

After reviewing the Local Government Reform and Collaboration's underwhelming final report, we looked around the state and country, where we found numerous places taking local government reform seriously. New York recently provided 20 highly specific recommendations focused on seven different areas of governance reform. In neighboring Indiana, a commission issued 27 bold recommendations that included townships and school districts.

In Ohio, we too, have examples of innovative governance reform, albeit smaller in scale:

• Montgomery County takes a portion of each year’s sales tax revenue to provide grants for economic development projects through it ED/GE program. Any increased property and income tax revenues collected are shared with program members.
• A 16-county group in northeastern Ohio is developing a structure for coordinated regional land use planning and tax sharing.

With a biennial budget gap of approximately $8 billion looming and data from our recent Restoring Prosperity report showing that local government payroll in Ohio is 17.5 percent above the average of peer states, the time for change is now. We encourage the next administration to make local government reform a high priority starting with the re-establishment of the former State and Local Government Commission, support the nascent efforts under way in our state and follow the lead of other states.  As we have met with stakeholders and local interest groups throughout Ohio, we have found great interest in the re-establishment of this Commission and appreciate all the feedback and advice we have collected.

Our work has just begun – and there is much more work to do. The gap between costs and revenues at the local level continues to widen. We must act now to pave the way for Ohio’s entry into the competitive next economy. If we hold back now, we will pay later.