It seems to be happening more often than not these days – entire cities are facing massive budget issues threatening their very vitality. The latest in the pack to get bad financial news? Chicago.
According to the Tribune, Mayor Richard Daley is now in the position of having to scrounge and borrow $270 million to help pay Chicago's bills, while simultaneously working hard to devise new plans and options for raising the city's bottom line. By the sounds of things, he's up for the challenge - and the Trib sounds relatively upbeat about his proposed initiatives (while offering some of their own unique ideas.)
It's not necessarily good news, but at least Chicago isn't the only one facing woes.
Back in the summer, the Miami Herald proclaimed that the city of Miami – well known for its high-rolling lifestyle – was in the worst financial crunch in over a decade. At the time the city was reportedly over $50 million in the hole, trying to make ends meet over the last five years of economic decline.
To cover all the costs they've needed to deal with, they've been playing a bit of switcheroo, moving money around from certain funds and budgets to make things happen. Thankfully, it's not to the extent that it was happening back in 1996, when the city was on the verge of bankruptcy. However, it's still problematic. And emergency funds are dipping low.
But it's not just cities. On the state level, the Review-Journal recently ran a piece proudly trumpeting the fact that although the entire state of Nevada is facing some pretty tough times, they're not the worst in the nation. Through a National Conference of State Legislatures, Nevada discovered their tax revenues will decline by 5%.
However that's nothing in comparison to Alaska, who will lose 45% due to oil issues, and Louisiana, with a 13.9% decline. Michigan, with the highest unemployment rate in the country, didn't participate in the study, nor did four other states.
Although things seem bleak, there's always that old adage - what comes up, must go down... and what comes down must go up. The question is: when's it going to go up?
