Penny-pinchers long on symbolism, short on substance

By Patrick McMahon
USA Today

State and local officials are pinching pennies and raising money in small ways to dramatize the financial plight they blame on a weak economy.

Mayor John Brenner of York, Pa., asked people to donate $3.32 apiece — "about the cost of a McDonald's Happy Meal" — to help avert cuts in police and rescue services. The city has received $85,000 since last month, a sign, he says, that "people want to help" in tough times.

Other initiatives:

• Denver's jail switched from hot lunches for inmates to cold sandwiches and fruit — and will save $150,000 a year. "Sometimes, it feels like we're tightening our belts until there's no belt left," spokesman Darryle Brown says.
• The mayor of Erie, Pa., wants to charge local colleges a services fee of $50 per student.
• The ski resort town of Vail, Colo., is selling cast-iron replicas of its 24-inch-wide manhole covers on eBay for $295.
• Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will work for free the next four years, saving the state his $135,000 annual salary. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin accepts $100,000 of her $140,000 salary. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a multimillionaire, takes home $1 of his $195,000 paycheck.

The moves come as slumping tax revenue force wholesale rollbacks in state and local programs approved or expanded during the economic boom of the late 1990s. Experts salute the unconventional approaches toward city and state fiscal distress but warn that more substantive actions are needed.

"Some of them are gimmicks, but they are ways for elected officials to communicate vividly a serious problem," says Stephen Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a former two-term mayor of Indianapolis. "There is serious work that still needs to be done."

Many budget cuts by states and cities are more far-reaching. More than 100 rural school districts now operate four days a week in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Seattle is closing its libraries for two weeks later this year in a drive to save $1.5 million. Boston canceled its 2003 class of 60 police recruits.

"These are the most difficult cuts I've had to make in 10 years as mayor, and we all face even more," says Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. About 300 mayors are gathering in Washington beginning today to propose a national economic stimulus plan.

Franklin cut staff and pushed through a 50 percent property tax hike after she took office a year ago. The $40,000 annual pay cut she took "was symbolic in a way, but it was real," she says.

"People said, 'What difference will that make?' Well, we pay a starting police officer $32,000," Franklin says. "I wanted to set a standard."