Mayor defends city's finances

By Andy Matthews
andy@surrymessenger.com

City finances dominated Thursday night's Mount Airy City Council meeting with Mayor Jack Loftis defending the government budget while one commissioner questioned the market value of a commercial tract of land that is tied to an incentive agreement for a business expansion.
Referring to an audit of the city's finances at the close of the fiscal 2008-09 year, Loftis said that Mount Airy's financial health was sound. Despite rumors to the contrary, he said, the city has more than $9 million in savings, a reasonable amount of debt, and sufficient money in the water and sewer fund.
"There's so much bad information out there," Loftis said. "There was a rumor that we had blown our fund balance. You can't get any further from the truth than that."
Loftis said that the city has carefully managed its finances in the midst of a nearly two-year-old recession.
"We have tried to be as conservative as we know, but you can't avoid maintenance forever. You can't avoid recognizing good employees forever," he said. "We've watched operations as conservatively as we can and it's clearly spelled out for anyone who wants to know them. I don't know where some of this stuff comes from . . . It's just totally off base."
Thursday night wasn't the first time that a city official has responded to criticism of the city's finances. Last month, during the four-way mayoral race, Gene Clark and Paul Eich both questioned the management of city expenditures. Eich alluded to a $900,000 proposal to extend water and sewer lines to Piedmont Triad West Industrial Park, saying the money would be better spent on aging infrastructure. Clark said that the council, not City Manager Don Brookshire, should be making key policy decisions.
That criticism continued after Eich and Clark were defeated with a coalition of residents opposed to Teresa Lewis taking Mayor-Elect Deborah Cochran's commissioner's seat. Cochran defeated Lewis in the Nov. 3 mayor's race. Critics of Lewis insist that she isn't a fiscal conservative and not an agent of change. Lewis counters by saying she owns and operates Workforce Carolina, one of the Piedmont Triad's largest employment agencies.
One of those critics is John Pritchard who has consistently questioned the city's finances. Pritchard reiterated his concerns Thursday night, saying that if the city's water and sewer fund had increased 14 percent, residents were entitled to a corresponding decrease in their utility rates.
"I really thought we would replace the worst of our older infrastructure, but there's been no hint of attempts to do that. No talk of grants," Pritchard said.
On an unrelated note, Commissioner Jon Cawley asked why the city assigned a $230,000 value to an 8.7-acre tract in the city's industrial park. The land, Brookshire said, will allow the city to match state financial incentives.
"If you're giving land I hope you understand this might be seen on the balance sheet as very valuable, but you might not find someone who would pay one-fifth of this," Cawley said.
Brookshire told Cawley that donating the property, which is jointly owned by the city and county, means the city won't have to dip into its savings.
"This allows us to match a state grant without having to reach into our economic stabilization fund and write a check," Brookshire said.