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Moraine city officials: There’s no place to go but up

Jan Underwood/Staff photographer Splash Moraine, now closed for the season, will not open next summer due to budget problems.

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Moraine dips into rainy day fund, makes other budget adjustments

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By Kristin McAllister, Staff Writer Updated 11:21 PM Sunday, October 25, 2009

MORAINE — When the final GMC Envoy Denali rolled off the line on Dec. 23, 2008, at the General Motors Corp. plant in Moraine, city leaders knew tough times were ahead for the town of 7,200 that for decades relied on a healthy industrial base for its core income.

GM’s assembly plant closing came on the heels of the departures of other major employers, such as Delphi, Cooper Tires and Plastech Industries. In total, those closings cost the city nearly 22 percent in annual income tax revenues. Moraine thought it had hit rock bottom.

Then earlier this month, in order to avert a $5.5 million deficit for 2010, city officials suspended operations of its popular water park, Splash Moraine, cut 187 positions and implemented unpaid furloughs, among other expense reductions.

The cutbacks might have been worse, but the city’s cash reserves are helping to cushion the blow.

For the third consecutive year, Moraine will dip into its cash reserves to balance its $20 million budget and avoid further reductions in personnel and services, said City Manager David Hicks.

With nearly $12 million in its general fund reserves and no debt, Hick said this cushion has “allowed us to buy time since then.”

Many small Ohio municipalities do not operate without debt or have a rainy day fund like Moraine’s, which accrues about $1 million each month in collected income taxes from more than 700 businesses in the city, Hicks said.

Moraine created its rainy day fund in the 1970s after the Fridgidaire plant closed, Hicks said. Even after GM bought and reopened the plant, the city continued to pour money into its reserves to prepare for an economic downturn.

“Most of the big company hits we’ve taken are over,” Hicks said. “As we come back up, we’ll be more diversified. Our economic base will be even stronger than it was, because we won’t be relying on the one big employer, like GM, and (hurt) when it has a layoff or is shut down.”

Keep reading: City dips into rainy-day fund

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Are Dayton and Moraine the only cities affected by the recession? They are obviously the only ones getting DDN's attention.

E. Bruce
1:13 PM, 10/26/2009

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So, Moraine realized they hit rock bottom with the closure of Splash Moraine? I would've thought that the closure of GM might have indicated that the city has hitting rock bottom, but then again I have a degree in business so what do I know?

Reality Check
11:15 AM, 10/26/2009

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NO FRED - IT IS PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT HAS CAUSED THIS COUNTRY TO SINK BEYOND REPAIR

deadhead fred
8:52 AM, 10/26/2009

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With Moraine's identity largely gone, I keep wondering why it's necessary to retain it as a city at all. It's going to cost residents a fortune to offset the lost income tax receipts and the salary/pension obligations and operate basic services. Seems Moraine would be better off to consider giving up it's charter and returning to a township or dividing up into adjacent towns. Sometimes businesses and companies eventually expire, so why shouldn't cities?

Just A Question
8:37 AM, 10/26/2009

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PS The workers at Frigidaire woked very hard and well earned the paycheck they received.
I went to the Army during the Viet Nam era.
It was a "cake walk" compared to working in the sweat shops at a local Division of GM known as Frigidaire.

The weenies went to college on the backs of hard working GM (USA) workers.
Now our country is in a mess with these goofy ideas of theirs.

Fred
7:32 AM, 10/26/2009

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