Covington commission hears news of very real budget cuts — no ‘fantasy,’ says Mayor

By Ryan Clark
NKyTribune reporter

It’s real, Covington Mayor Joseph U. Meyer told his constituents.

“Any allegations about the fantasy of these budget cuts not being real should be put to rest,” he said during the Covington Commission’s regularly scheduled caucus meeting Tuesday night.

During the city manager’s report at the beginning of the meeting, Ken Smith recalled how he’d sent an email to Commissioners Tuesday, highlighting a number of cuts the city has made due to its ongoing budget woes. Details of that email were then discussed.

“Over the last few months, we’ve been talking a lot about the financial challenges presented by the drop in payroll revenue, payroll tax, based on the work-from-home situation at one of our larger companies,” Smith said. “And while we had talked a lot about some of the challenges, we really haven’t talked about what we had already done to help address this issue. So, I sent you all an e-mail earlier this afternoon outlining some of that.”

Covington Commission (Photo by Ryan Clark/NKyTribune)

Smith explained there have been:

freezing of hiring positions
eliminating some positions that were empty
ending contracts
not buying equipment

But other decisions were even more impactful, he said.

“Our biggest impact — and what really, from my standpoint, was the most impactful — was the rescinding of all the ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) projects,” he said. “So, as you know, the city received a large allocation and that was money to offset the effects of COVID, which we certainly did have some lost revenue. But we had $16.7 million in projects and programs for the city of Covington and citizens that we had to reallocate that money back to keep everybody employed and keep the services flowing for those residents and businesses.”

Those reallocations included:

$3.1 million set aside for affordable housing
$7 million for a parking garage
$450,000 to extend the free Wi-Fi network
$400,000 in small business support
$475,000 set aside for elderly, low-income people that couldn’t make repairs to their homes
$2.5 million for parks and rec

“Those are things that Covington probably won’t be able to do anytime in the short future,” Smith said.

In January, Steve Webb, the city’s finance director, explained how the city will have to find a way of making up for millions of dollars in lost payroll tax because Fidelity changed their local tax withholdings to home jurisdictions because of the time their employees work from home.

Because of that change — which Fidelity officials have said they will not change back — the city will be forced to make up about $5 million initially, with another possible $11 million the following year.

So, the city is cutting costs.

“These are real numbers, real priorities that would have directly served the people who live in our city, and we’re losing out,” Mayor Meyer said.


Smart Outdoor Kiosks

Commissioners heard a proposed agreement with Rove iQ and Southbank Partners related to a kiosk installation near Riverfront Commons/Covington Landing.

Southbank has agreed to cover all of the hard costs totaling $87,580, and Rove iQ has agreed to waive the annual license fee of $4,800. The city would only be responsible for a $5,000 annual payment for the warranty/service agreement, Ken Smith said.

Advertising revenue generation is expected to first cover the donated license fee and then the city’s $5,000 annual cost. Revenue in excess of $9,800 would be shared equally between the two entities.

“I appreciate Southbank sponsoring this,” Commissioner Tim Downing said. “Generally, when the city has something like this show up it can automatically be assumed by the public that this is a cost the city incurred, and certainly something that looks like that. … At the same time that we were talking about cutting costs in other areas, I would just want to make sure that Southbank is getting full credit for the sponsorship, and that that’s something we’re very clear with the public on. Because we really do appreciate their generosity — we also want to make sure that we’re not giving mixed messages or mixed signals.”

The proposal will appear on the consent agenda for next week’s legislative meeting.

Fiscal Presentation Next Week

Sticking with the financial topic, next week, the Commission will hear a presentation on the Fiscal Year 2024 Second Quarter Report.

Resignations

Commissioners heard the proposed resignations of:

Ben Oldiges, Parks and Recreation Manager, Neighborhood Services
Ryan Jones, Police Officer, Police Department

Both of the resignations were placed on next week’s consent agenda.

Reappointments

Commissioners heard the proposed reappointments of:

Lawrence Widlowski, Devou Properties, Inc.
Dinesh Ganapathy, Devou Properties, Inc.
Greg Engelman, Devou Properties, Inc.
Linda Cobbs-Banks, Human Rights Commission
Charles Fann, Human Rights Commission

All of the reappointments were placed on next week’s consent agenda.

Devou Benches

Commissioner Steve Hayden gave a shout-out to those responsible for the new benches in Devou Park.

“There’s roughly 20 of them — they’re first-class, really high-quality, beautiful benches,” Hayden said. “They’re intended to eventually pay for themselves. They’re low-maintenance anyway, but they’re intended to pay for themselves … (they) have a plaque on the back of the bench. It’s first-class, really nice.”

Smith Absent

Commissioner Shannon Smith was absent Tuesday night.

Next Meeting

The next regularly scheduled Covington Commission meeting will be a legislative meeting held at 6 p.m., March 12, at the City Building at 20 W. Pike St. in Covington. The meetings can be followed live on Fioptics channel 815, Spectrum channel 203, the Telecommunications Board of Northern Kentucky (TBNK) website, the TBNK Facebook page @TBNKonline, and the TBNK Roku channels.