On facebook, I received a question/comment about the Street Light project. The question was, "why did the City spend money on new street lights if the City is having financial challenges?
This is a good question for which there is a good answer. Per State law, the Community Development Authority (CDA) and grant funds used to pay for this project can not be used by the City to pay for general government expenses such as for payment of regular employee wages or benefits. The funds used for the street light project are reserved to help reverse the decline in downtown areas. The CDA Board determined that improving the appearance of the downtown with modern, energy efficient lights was the "best" use of these funds to help reverse the decline of the downtown. It also helped that over $500,000 in grant funds from the Federal government were made available to help pay for the project.
The construction costs of the light posts, concrete, labor, etc were paid with CDA and grant funding that can not be used for regular City expenses such as city employee wages and benefits. If we had not used these funds, most of them would have gone to another city and Rogers City would still be paying the higher electrical charges for the old lights.
The money spent on these new lights is not a contributing factor in the current financial challenge facing the City. Even if the CDA had not done this project, the City would still have the exact same financial problems we have today. In fact it would be a little worse because of higher electric charges; although, the electric costs are a small part of the general fund problem. I'll write more about the City's financial challenges another time.
If you have questions about this, please contact me.
1 comment:
As is known to all, LED street light's characteristics are obviously different from the traditional lamp, ex. Halogen lamp efficiency raising depends on the best radiating, long life, pollution-free, energy saving.,etc.
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