Aurora pols must rein in spending

With the election now behind us, it appears we have some financial challenges ahead in the city of Aurora that are now coming to light.

The initial proposal to address these challenges is to reduce our employee levels. However, why would our employees or anyone believe we face financial challenges?

Anyone who has attended a city council meeting would assume there are unlimited funds available when observing the lack of concern on the cost or necessity of any proposal or issue that comes before Council.

One cannot blame our financial situation simply on the economy and our employees. The financial challenges are caused by the irresponsible spending habits of council that have been ongoing for years.

The commitment of resources with a lack of planning and understanding of new revenue has put us in this position. It is easy for politicians today to act as if the economic decline was unrelated to their own conduct. It has been their wasteful behavior and borrowing that created this situation.

I encourage you to visit www.aurora-il.org. Under "Finance" review the city budget and ward funds for many examples of how your money is spent.

Solving our financial challenge is not difficult if we first have a commitment by city council members to cease their wasteful spending and revaluate the need or priority of certain projects.

We must reduce the size of this bureaucracy and, most importantly, refocus our resources on the core priorities such as infrastructure and safety. We must only commit funds to projects and programs that are viable with a clear return on investment.

Failure to change the way we conduct business will result in additional tax and fee increases in order to feed the council's spending addiction.

Rick Lawrence

Aurora alderman