Budget Management
When Wade took office, he inherited a budget deficit. Today, Toledo’s Rainy Day Fund is $70 million, the highest it has even been.
During 2017, one of the central promises of Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz’s campaign was to put the city’s fiscal house in order.
Toledo’s taxpayers work too hard to have their tax dollars squandered by ineffective financial management. Every dollar wasted is a dollar that could have been used to make Toledo a better and safer place to live. Under the Mayor’s leadership, the City’s rainy day fund more than doubled during his first year in office. During his second year, it grew to over $40 million — 10x larger than it had been just five years previously.
In 2020, it rained. The COVID pandemic threatened the finances of Toledo’s families—and the City government, too. In fact, an analysis by the Brookings Institution identified several Ohio cities that were likely to feel the fiscal shock of the pandemic the worst. The study showed cities like Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, and Toledo – all of which rely heavily on income tax for general fund revenue – would be among the hardest hit in the entire nation.
“Because of the hard work we did in 2018 and 2019 to get our financial house in order, we were able to better withstand the downturn of 2020,” the mayor said. “We have a $70 million rainy day fund today, when ten years ago we had a negative rainy day fund.”