The City of Ferguson is extremely disappointed with several inaccuracies related to the recent article by Bloomberg News dated 12/12/14. The article misconstrues items demonstrating the cities fiscal responsibility, instead implying financial insolvency.
The City of Ferguson is extremely disappointed with several inaccuracies related to the recent article by Bloomberg News dated December 12, 2014. The article misconstrues items demonstrating the cities fiscal responsibility, instead implying financial insolvency.
Bloomberg’s headline,” Ferguson to Increase Police Ticketing to Close City’s Budget Gap,” insinuates an over reliance on municipal court fines as a primary source of revenues when in fact they represented less than 12% of city revenues for the last fiscal year.
The City of Ferguson’s annual operating budget for fiscal year 2014-2015 was adopted and approved by the City Council on June 24, 2014. The vast majority of the budgeted revenue increase in fines and forfeitures is related to the reinstatement of the City’s existing red-light camera program. The red-light camera program was suspended pending a decision by the State Supreme Court and the City is currently awaiting that decision.
The December 12th story is the latest in a series of articles focused on the city, which contained considerable inaccuracies regarding the city’s financial position. One such statement which is not based on facts is from an August 25th Bloomberg story. The story says,” Its general fund balance had been bolstered in previous years by bond sale proceeds, city documents show.” Over the past three years the city has issued capital improvement bonds to fund three major capital projects: a new firehouse, purchase and renovation of a new community center and extensive renovations to the police station. Bond proceeds of this nature cannot, and were not used to supplement general expenditures.
We have contacted Bloomberg News to discuss the inaccuracies in the Dec 12th article.