Roxanne Qualls and John Cranley are campaigning for Cincinnati's mayor's job.
The city will restore $500,000 in funding it cut in order to balance Cincinnati?s budget, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls said Thursday at a mayoral candidate forum held by a group of human services providers.
Qualls and her opponent, former city councilman John Cranley, jousted over which one of them was to blame for the city?s ill fiscal health and what they would do to help out the 20 percent Cincinnati residents who live in poverty.
And because no candidate forum is complete without talking about the streetcar and Cincinnati?s plan to lease its parking assets, Cranley and Qualls argued over those, too.
Qualls said Cranley shares responsibility for the cuts to human service funding because of actions he took while on city council as chairman of the budget committee, a position Qualls now hold.
?As far back as 2000, we had a structurally balanced budget. The budget deficit hole blew open in 2001-2002. That was the result of two actions by the city council on which Mr. Cranley served,? she said.
Those city councils capped property tax revenues at $29 million instead of allowing the full revenue from an approved city levy of 6.1 mills come in, Qualls said, resulting in the loss of $96 million over the last decade-plus. Cranley and others also insisted on hiring 100 additional police officers that then-Police Chief Thomas Streicher said he did not need.
?That was the beginning of the end of 1.5 percent of operating budget for human services,? Qualls said.
?All of the police officers we added are gone through attrition and yet she?s still trying to blame me for a budget she?s been in charge of for four years,? Cranley responded, adding that the property tax cut also is gone.
Wetterich covers government and politics, transportation and downtown development.
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