At Thursday morning’s Rooster Booster, a monthly breakfast meeting hosted by the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Tom Watson and Judge Executive Al Mattingly gave their state of the city and county addresses respectively.
State of the City
In his seventh time addressing the state of the city, Watson assigned the four newly sworn in city commissioners in attendance the task of creating a personal bucket list of what each would like to see over the next year. He explained that this along with scheduled meeting time prior to each commission meeting would help in the communication of the commission board.
2018 infrastructure improvements like the $11.5 million federal grant to fix Industrial Drive, and the funded I-165 spur and Highway 54 widening projects, were significant growth indicators according to Watson. The decision to increase net profit taxes was positive also, according to Watson, who said the city took in $2.4 million rather than losing $3.3 million had the city commission voted against it.
“That means growth,” Watson said. “And you never want to have a sign on your town that says ‘Welcome, hurry back’ on the same side. You want to grow, we have to grow.”
Watson said the local economy will see improvement in 2019 with expansions of UniFirst, O.Z. Tyler Distillery, Owensboro Grain as well as the second phase of the Advanced Technology Center at Owensboro Community & Technical College.
But Watson’s main initiative of 2019 is what he calls the second phase of downtown development — housing and parking.
“We need a density of people downtown to make this happen,” Watson said, noting that parking is still the biggest challenge for downtown expansion and economic development.
State of the County
In his ninth state of the county address, Mattingly began his speech the same as he has done in years past, “We have money in the bank and we pay our bills on time.”
Mattingly said that by reviewing every expense, renegotiating contracts, and reworking healthcare, the county has been able to save millions of dollars to help with community improvements without dipping into reserve funds or taking on new debt.
“We operated the county on a business basis, like you do at your businesses every day,” Mattingly said to the full Convention Center room.
Local government is and will continue to pay more to cover the pension crisis, Mattingly said. For the county, that means $1.5 million.
“This added expense is for a past liability,” Mattingly said. “It’s what we owe for the past years, it’s not for the future years and it’s a huge addition to the cost side of the county and for the city, and there is no offset on the revenue side.”
According to Mattingly, Daviess County Sheriff’s Office depends on $2.5 million from Daviess County Fiscal Court. There is a need for more patrol deputies, court bailiffs, increased pay for both and more equipment.
“But when you say more that means more money,” Mattingly said. “Just the increase in pensions, jail and the sheriff’s need will add over 3 million new dollars to our budget in the next four years.”
So you either cut costs or increase revenue, Mattingly said. Without one of these options, Mattingly said the county will start to dip into its reserves within three to four years
“I would hate to think that we will start basing our decisions on what the cost will be instead of what is right, what is just and what is needed by our community,” Mattingly said.
According to Mattingly, the city and county communicate well.
“Two local governments working in cooperation with a common goal — that sends an awfully powerful message to Frankfort and to Washington,” Mattingly said.
