A Response to the Mayor's State of the City Address

A city’s budget is its plan for using limited resources to meet the needs of the people who live there. The budget is the clearest way to understand a city’s values and priorities.

Huntington’s city charter requires the mayor to annually submit the budget for the next fiscal year and give an accompanying message to the City Council. This week I attended the Council meeting where Mayor Steve Williams delivered his budget message, also sometimes called the State of the City Address, for the next fiscal year (July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2025).  

Mayor Williams's address marked a significant moment because it was his final one after three terms in office. To start, I want to thank Steve for his service to the city over the past 11 years. Leading a city the size of Huntington is a challenging task that takes much more than just ceremonial ribbon cuttings and inspiring speeches about a love for our city. The role of a mayor in our city is hard, comparable to that of a high-level CEO, and it demands leadership experience, financial expertise, and high ethical standards. 

In this case, the company is the City of Huntington, which has close to 400 employees and a revenue of almost $78 million. The job of the mayor requires serious executive skills because more than 44,000 people are counting on you. They are relying on you to ensure the streets are maintained, police officers and firefighters respond quickly when there is trouble, pension obligations to retirees are met, and more. If you fail at any of these, people's lives will be directly affected. 

I’ve led large companies with substantial budgets, and I can attest to the challenges involved. Even when operations run smoothly, personnel problems and contract disputes arise. Tough employment decisions about long-time colleagues are often necessary. Leadership at this level involves intense negotiations, difficult discussions about budget cuts with key departments, and oversight of multi-million dollar construction projects to ensure they stay on schedule and within budget. Failing at any one of these issues will quickly expose leadership shortcomings. 

Mayor Williams deserves our gratitude and recognition for his significant contributions to the city in this demanding role. Since becoming mayor, he has successfully secured nearly $500 million in funds from federal, state, and private sources. His efforts to stabilize our pension obligations is commendable. He will be remembered as an inspirational leader who won national acclaim and helped guide the city through a drug epidemic and a global pandemic – no small feats!

As for the mayor's final budget message, it felt to me like it was intended to be a well-deserved farewell speech rather than a forward-looking plan for the upcoming year. The mayor said the budget proposed no new initiatives and signaled a continuation of the city’s current course. 

While I understand wanting to avoid some of the sore spots for the city, I wish we would have heard more about how the budget addresses homelessness, sober living homes, fentanyl, and the funding challenges for our schools, parks, and libraries. These are important issues that still face the city, and it is through the budget that they can be addressed. 

The mayor’s message did mention laudable reductions in certain crime categories from their recent peaks, but anyone who drives through downtown, the West End, Fairfield, or any other neighborhood can tell you that crime hasn’t gone away. I’ll say it plainly: actual crime and the perception of crime are still problems in Huntington.

In 2023, there were 360 violent crimes reported in the city. That’s almost one a day.  There were just as many drug offenses (375 reported), and almost five reported property crimes every day (1,780 last year). And these are just the reported crimes. For a city our size, we have too much violent crime, too much property crime, and too many drug offenses.  

The mayor's budget message, which lasted almost an hour, was full of information and made me curious about many aspects of the proposed spending. I hope our City Council members will address these questions during the upcoming budget hearings:

• The police department currently has 94 sworn officers, but it is budgeted for 108. Filling the budgeted positions would add the equivalent of a full shift to the police force, which would not only help prevent crime but also help hold criminals accountable. What are we doing to accelerate our police officer recruiting and retention efforts so we can get to full strength as quickly as possible?    

• Abandoned houses lead to blighted neighborhoods, lower property values, and invite crime. The proposed budget only funds the demolition program for the first six months of the year and reduces funding from $1,150,000 to $500,000, a decrease of $650,000. Was the funding cut because the city needs the money to fund higher priority projects? If the new mayor wants to continue the program for the second half of the year, where will the funding come from? 

• The “Contributions” budget line, which I presume to be funding for important community organizations, grew from $3,598,942 to $3,811,942, an increase of $213,000. Which organizations benefit from that funding and how do they contribute to addressing the city’s priorities?

I have more questions, but I learned from my time as Chairman of the Marshall University Board of Governors, which had to approve spending of more than $300 million, that a big budget requires trade-offs. A lot of work goes into the budgeting process, and it’s not fair or helpful to take potshots over one or two issues. You need to look at the whole picture to understand what is being prioritized. 

The bottom line is that the city's budget is a reflection of our values and priorities as well as a clear statement about what we hope to become. I am running for mayor because I want to make Huntington a better place to live and work. That requires more than maintaining the status quo. We need to apply our resources to address our most pressing needs so that businesses want to open offices here and families want to raise their kids here. Talking about positive change is important, but the budget is where the rubber meets the road and where our actions speak louder than words.

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