City Elections: Michael Malterer on Financial Health

Patch recently asked the seven candidates running for New Port Richey City Council:  "How do you define whether the city is “financially healthy?” What are your ideas for making sure the city meet that definition, if it hasn’t already?"

We also asked:

"What’s your position on the ideas of cutting services, raising taxes or increasing fees as options for helping the city be financially healthy? What other strategies would you use?"

We got answers.

Here's what Micchael Malterer had to say:

My definition of "financially healthy" means that the tax rate and debt is low and our money in reserve is high. We have not met that definition recently. I believe that the City needs to be working harder to promote New Port Richey as a place to live, shop and work. Expanding our tax base is the best way to help us meet that goal but we also need to comb through every line of the budget to make sure we are saving money wherever possible.

Nobody likes to cut services or raise taxes/fees. Cutting back is necessary sometimes but there are always ways to ease the cut on citizens. I do not believe that raising taxes is a proper way of achieving financial stability. I believe that fees are a different story, if it is truly a "fee" then it will always cover the cost of the service. That means those fees will be adjusted annually proportionally to their cost.

Find the other six candidates' responses to this question at our hub article.