Nashville Finance Director Describes Plan to Fix City Finances

 

NASHVILLE — Tennessee Comptroller Justin Wilson is not pleased with Metro Nashville’s finances and wants three things out of city officials as part of a corrective action plan so the city won’t fall into a receivership.

This, according to Metro Finance Director Kevin Crumbo at a meeting Wednesday at the Metro Nashville Courthouse.

“What happened with the Comptroller being here, about a month ago, was absolutely historic,” Crumbo told Metro Council members.

“At no time in recent memory has the Comptroller had to pay Nashville a visit and say essentially ‘You need to get your house in order.’”

Wilson, Crumbo went on to say, wants the following three things:

• A structurally balanced budget for the current fiscal year that is scheduled to end June 30

Yes, Every Kid

• A comprehensive cash management policy for all of Nashville

• Metro Nashville ‘s audited comprehensive annual financial reports and single audit reports by the end of December of each year

“The Comptroller is very pleased and said ‘Nashville, your budget is approved for this year,’” Crumbo quoted Wilson as saying.

“I cannot overemphasize the significance of that approval. It sounds just so very simple, but I can assure you that it is not,” he said.

At the meeting, Metro Council member Steve Glover congratulated Crumbo and members of Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s administration “for doing the hard work and making decisions that are not popular — nor will be popular going forward.”

“If the money is not in the checkbook then we cannot spend it. If we go down that road (of receivership) then we have no say in what the state does. They would make cuts. They walk in and do what they do,” Glover told Crumbo.

“We don’t necessarily have a money problem in Nashville. We have a spending problem. As we go forward it will require a blending of ideas, cuts, revenue sources, and revenue opportunities, etc.”

Glover said Metro officials should not consider a tax increase as the only solution.

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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].

 

 

 

 

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  1. […] The Tennessee Star reported this month, Metro Finance Director Kevin Crumbo said Wilson wants the following three things out of the […]

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