Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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JANUARY 18-24, 2017 UCW 11 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM It's not often that Fayetteville is discussed in the same con- text with New York and Chicago. The Big Apple and the Windy City rank at the bottom of a new analysis of municipal fiscal strength, while Fayetteville is near the top. The Fiscal Times report of the financial health of 116 U.S. cities with populations over 200,000 was based primarily on data from 2015 financial reports issued by the cities themselves. The Fiscal Times is a digital news analysis and opinion publication based in New York City and Washington, D.C. It says it focuses on how fiscal policy affects business and consumers and how business and consumer behavior influences government fiscal policy. Chicago's has a large amount of outstanding debt and underfunded pension plans. New York City also carries a very heavy debt burden. The city's comptroller reports that new York's per capita debt greatly exceeds that of all other large U.S. cities, and is even 50 percent higher than that of Chicago. Six of the top 10 cit- ies were in California, led by Irvine which scored a perfect 100. The Fiscal Times gave Fayetteville a score of 89, ranking the city 8th best in the nation. "It's because of our strong fiscal health, we are able to look at future economic development projects like the downtown stadium," said Mayor Nat Robertson. "To maintain our solid fiscal policy, we not only keep an eye on what we spend, we spend it like it was our own money," he added. Five other North Carolina cities had scores of 70 or above. Durham came in as 13th. Greensboro was 21st. Charlotte and Raleigh were 56th and 57th respec- tively, and Winston Salem ranked 64th. The online news service said any score higher than 70 could reasonably be interpreted as a level of fiscal health sufficient to justify a AAA credit rating, the highest possible. "We are very pleased to be recognized nationally, and also with the highest ranking in the state," said Cheryl Spivey, the city's Chief Financial Officer. This "is an indicator of how well-managed our funds are," she added. The City of Fayetteville has been recognized consistently for its management of financial affairs. It received the Distinguished Budget Presenta- tion Award for fiscal year 2016 and Certificates of Excellence in Financial Reporting for Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports for fiscal years 2006 through 2015. State and local governments that receive over $750,000 in federal funds are required to file audited financial statements no later than nine months after their fiscal year end. Federal government financial accounting procedures also require cities to report all long-term obligations. The Fiscal Times weighted scoring system is based on a 100-point scale, using five factors: Here are the details of Fay- etteville's fiscal health: • General Fund Balance as a Percentage of General Fund Expenditures 47.42 percent. • Long Term Obligations as a Percentage of Total Revenues 71.61 percent • Actuarially Required Pension Contributions as a Percentage of Total Rev- enues 2.16 percent • Change in Unemployment Rate 0.20 percent • Change in Home Prices -2.23 percent • Fiscal Health Score 89 • Implied Bond Rating AAA The analysis was authored by Marc Joffe, Director of Policy Research for the California Policy Center. He has written for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Reason Foundation and the Haas Institute at UC Berkeley. Previ- ously, he was a senior director at Moody's Analytics. Fayetteville's Finances Are Fantastic by JEFF THOMPSON NEWS JEFF THOMPSON, Senior News Reporter. COMMENTS? news@upandcomingweekly. com. 910.484.6200. It appears that Cumberland County Commissioners and Fayetteville City Council members are about to take on fighting poverty as a priority in the year ahead, and beyond. Local government and school board members often refer to budgetary needs not being met because ours is a "low wealth community." Coun- cilman Kirk deViere says his wake-up call came when he began campaigning for the District 2 council seat he now holds. The district is comprised of some of the poorest and wealthiest neighborhoods in Fayetteville. He found that three of the city's six economically distressed census tracts are in District 2. Coincidentally, newly-named County Commission Chairman Glenn Adams also acknowledged poverty in Cumberland County during his acceptance speech in early December. He said it's important for the board "to discuss and bring action to the issue of poverty because poverty involves everyone's lives. This issue must be addressed head-on in the next year; we cannot and will not be afraid to be a great community," he declared. The census tracts deViere represents that are among the poorest in Fayetteville include Massey Hill, Downtown/Hillsboro Street and Old Wilm- ington Road. District 2 also includes parts of Haymount and the "gold coast" near Highland Country Club. In a report to City Council deViere identified five major indicators of wealth or the lack of it: Segregation, income inequal- ity, school quality, social capital and family structure. Using census data, he found that one in four Fayetteville residents lives in poverty. Annual income of $24,300 is the poverty level for a family of four. The 2016 federal poverty level is used to calculate eligibility for Med- icaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. DeViere found that Cumberland County is dead last among the U.S. 100 largest economic centers in earnings potential for children growing up in poverty; that single mothers represent 67.5 percent of local residents living below the poverty line; that 23.6 percent of impoverished residents are African American; 20.5 percent are Hispanic. "When we take action to change eco- nomic inequalities, we will change lives," deViere said. Following a 15-minute presentation to City Coun- cil, his colleagues voted unanimously to begin the process of learning more about aligning the community to ad- dress poverty. Adams contends that as the issue of poverty is discussed, the murder rate in our community must also be addressed. The City of Fayetteville recorded the highest number of homicides in its history last year, 31. Eighty- seven individuals charged with murder are awaiting trial in the county jail "and a large number of those are black men killing black men," Adams noted. "We cannot put our heads in the sand and act like this is not a problem," he said in his Dec. 5 address. Both officials recognize that coming to grips with poverty will make Fayetteville and Cumberland County a more desirable place for youth to stay, local college graduates to return home and make the community more at- tractive to business and entrepreneurs. DeViere calls the process "pathways for prosperity." Overcoming Poverty in Cumberland County by JEFF THOMPSON According to Census data, one in four Cumberland County residents live in poverty.