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Health & Fitness

City Financials and Random Thoughts

Good morning.  If we are not mistaken, and please correct us accordingly, but we have not seen the 2013 CAFR budget report posted on the City of Kennesaw website.  We will contact Gina Auld to find out when we can expect them, but if we recall they are usually posted in March?  The budget numbers are what fuels a lot of our interest because money does indeed talk. And of what shall we be interested in?

Rising costs of OPEB will surely be on our minds.  And while the Skate Park has been raised a few times as areas of concern, we have not really gotten deep into the woods on that one.  Steve Kennedy's city-provided car is always enjoyable to review, and most interestingly, although not in the financials, will be if the City Council is going to vote themselves out of a pension and health benefits?

We believe, of all the things that stick in our collective crawl, it is this benefit, which can only be an abuse of fiscal trust.  Here's an interesting question:  Is Mr. Reidemann, past "city council" member afforded a pension for his six months of "service" on the Council?  We certainly hope not, but if someone wants to hunt that down be my guest.

On to trash collection.  We saw Eileen's posts on the subject and it brings up an interesting point.  Dismiss the Legacy Park issue for just a moment.  The question is thus:  Is the outsourcing continue to save the City money and is the cost/benefit being looked at?  Are there metrics to compare Republic to the City's previous service? Is the $500,000 that was to be saved and rolled into the Storm Water budget improving the storm water issue?  Should be pretty easy to determine.

We shall leave the Museum and Gardens on the sidelines for the moment.  We will cruise by this weekend to see how many afford themselves of the free offer to visit the Museum.  If the numbers are disappointing when the admission is free, what does it say about the cost/value when visitors have to pay?  Or has visitations reached a saturation point beyond which each additional dollar spend on advertising the museum produces a decreasing return?

Final thought of the day:  A recent survey of 2,200 Americans by the National Science Foundation found that 25% of those surveyed could not answer correctly if the earth rotated around the sun.  

Wake up Kennesaw.


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