Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's $521 million budget proposal offers no tax hikes and no layoffs. But with city income tax revenue expected to rise a cool 2% this year, Jackson says there's little extra cash to work with. Most of the city's projected 7% increase in expenditures will go to health and retirement costs for city workers. But Jackson also wants to hire 30 more police officers, quadruple the city's demolition budget for abandoned and dangerous properties, and improve security at city rec centers. Joe Cimperman says he and other council members this week will be combing through the proposal.
Joe Cimperman: We say we're building bridges, we say we're doing more with less - how does this budget leverage other dollars, how does it leverage state and federal dollars, are we duplicating services?
Council hearings on the Mayor's 2007 budget are scheduled all week. I'm Mhari Saito, 90.3.