Budget and service cuts not as draconian as predicted
Last spring, Kenner Mayor Mike Yenni and Police Chief Steve Caraway predicted police layoffs and cuts in government services unless voters approved a $13 million package of property taxes. After voters rejected all six taxes a year ago Monday, there was talk of closing playgrounds, eliminating the police canine unit and giving some misdemeanor offenders a summons instead of arresting them.
View full sizeKenner Mayor Mike Yenni governs from a desk that sports the words of his grandfather, a former mayor of the city: Do not spend what you do not have!Since then, Yenni has indeed cut $2.3 million from the budget, closed three Rivertown museums and eliminated 35 jobs. Major crime reported in Kenner rose 8 percent 2011. But some of the more foreboding predictions have not come to pass. In fact, police got a pay raises totaling $678,000.
"The 'sky is falling, doom and gloom' never came," said Councilman Kent Denapolis, who opposed the tax package a year ago.
Yenni's ambitious proposal would have doubled municipal property taxes to 36.92 mills. It was a mix of renewals and increases for the police and fire departments, garbage service and sewerage, with $8.1 million in new money going to police and firefighters.
The mayor and elected police chief campaigned hard for the proposal, giving PowerPoint presentations at almost two dozen civic and community meetings in early 2011. At jeopardy, according to their presentation, was nothing less than "the overall safety and quality of life for the citizens of Kenner." If police didn't get more money, they warned, "layoffs will be imminent" and police officers "will leave" the department to seek better-paying jobs.
Voters said no
Voters roundly defeated all six measures, however, one of them by a 4-to-1 margin. The closest to passing was a sewer tax renewal viewed favorably by 43 percent of voters.
"It was not the time to double the citizens of Kenner's taxes," Councilman Gregory Carroll said, who voted against putting the tax increases on the ballot.
In the ensuing year, no police officers have been laid off. Four officers left the department and Caraway hired replacements for three of them, leaving the department with 160 officers, a net loss of one. Caraway said a 2009 million federal grant giving Kenner $1.3 million for eight officers demands he keep up his staffing levels for police officers.
The Police Department has instituted a hiring freeze for civilian employees. Ten workers who left during the past year have not been replaced: two jailers, two 911 dispatchers, the budget director, the facility maintenance technician, a public relations assistant, two administrative assistants and the City Hall liaison. Caraway said that has been a drain.
"All these jobs have an impact on the ability to run the department," he said. "Without them you have to put that workload on someone else."
As for his pre-vote warning that police revenue shortfalls would jeopardize citizens' safety, Caraway said overall crime increased 8 percent in 2011 compared with 2010.
"The biggest increase we've seen has been in thefts," he said. "The men and women of the Police Department are doing a fine job. We have to work within our budget and do the very best job we can with what we have."
Cuts never came
After the taxes failed, Caraway said he planned to cut the canine department and instruct officers to issue summonses to some misdemeanor offenders instead of arresting them. In addition, he said, police would not respond to some relatively minor calls for service.
None of that happened. Instead, the City Council gave the Police Department $176,000 in insurance proceeds from Hurricane Katrina damage at the Pontchartrain Center, plus $400,000 to buy new police cars.
Midway through the year, Caraway gave all police employees raises costing $678,000 for the current fiscal year. Caraway said the boost makes up for police going three years without raises.
But the pay raise led some to doubt that Kenner ever needed the extra tax revenue in the first place.
"Not only were there no layoffs at KPD, the department received raises and was able to purchase new Tahoes and cars, all without the millions in new taxes requested by Mayor Yenni and Chief Caraway," said Walt Bennetti, president of Citizens for a Better Kenner, which fought the tax proposal.
Caraway said he was able to give raises only because he used drug forfeitures -- money or goods criminals relinquish because of a violation of a drug crime -- for capital spending, which left money for pay increases.
"I'm glad I was able to give the men and women a raise they hadn't seen in years," Caraway said. "You have to be able to adequately pay the men and women who do this dangerous job or lose them to higher-paying jobs."
'We weren't trying to scare people'
During his presentations last spring, Yenni said that if the taxes failed, he wouldn't cut public safety money but would have to cut elsewhere, such as recreation and community services.
"We weren't trying to scare people," he said, adding that he was trying to stabilize the city's revenue source with higher property taxes, because sales taxes fluctuate so much. "I asked the people how they wanted their city governed."
After the taxes failed, Yenni assembled a streamlining committee that recommended spending cuts. In the most controversial suggestion, the group recommended closing six playgrounds.
Yenni responded with a proposal restructuring three: returning Highway Park Playground to its owner, the Jefferson Parish School Board, and no longer paying to maintain and operate it; using Lincoln Manor Playground for organized adult recreation, which generates revenue, instead of youth sports; and stripping Westgate of equipment to make it easier to maintain.
Intense opposition from the community and City Council resulted in all playgrounds remaining open, although with some changes. Youths are still given priority at Lincoln Manor but adult play has begun there. Kenner turned over management of Westgate to the New Orleans Metro Fast Pitch Softball Association. Highway Park is used exclusively for soccer.
Yenni also consolidated the Community Services Department into the Recreation Department, moved the community services director and assistant director to other departments and eliminated City Hall's public information officer position, moving that employee to assistant clerk of court.
By July 1, Kenner's total payroll was $1.1 million lower than a year earlier.
Bennetti was not impressed. "The bottom line is that, while Kenner may have reduced its workforce, Mayor Yenni eliminated workers and added directors," he said. "Directors don't change street lights, repair streets or cut grass; workers do."
Councilwoman Maria DeFrancesch, who originally voted to put the tax measures on the April 2011 ballot, said Kenner residents sent a message when they voted down the taxes: "People were looking for a way to restructure government to make it more effective and use every dollar effectively, be less top-heavy."
Since then, DeFrancesch said, government hasn't done enough restructuring, so she didn't support putting three straight tax renewals -- for fire, garbage and sewerage -- on the November ballot.
Voters, however, were not so critical. All three renewals, with no increases, passed with about 70 percent of the vote.
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Mary Sparacello can be reached at msparacello@timespicayune.com or 504.883.7063.