It's good news, but the announcement is not accurate. The rosy fiscal picture is not so much the result of cost-cutting as it is a forecast of tax revenue coming in.
What's happening is they are expecting the city's net evaluation to go way up over the next five years. Let's say for arguments sake, 20%. If spending was held the same, the tax rate would go down 20%. The article is written as if the public doesn't understand tax math, and that's probably true for most people. Not true for me. So spending will go up a little bit, and inflation will factor, but revenues coming in are forecast to go up much higher than spending and inflation.
I am not faulting them, as they deserve the credit for their end of it, holding spending down. But the real story is the tremendous increase in tax revenues. A lot of that has to do with properties in the immediate proximity of new construction in the downtown and vicinity.
