I’m wondering about the mayor’s ‘new direction’

“Sins of the past” is the quote from Mayor Steve Johnson at the Dec. 9 Kasson City Council meeting that needs to be addressed.  
His quote is certainly bothersome, as he also stated on several occasions this year how previous councils “spent recklessly” and claimed we had no idea what we were doing.  And yet, in his first budget, rather than finding ways to cut spending or weeding out where we allegedly “spent recklessly” they increased the levy by 8 percent.  If previous councils spent so unwisely, it should be easy to trim the budget.  
Let’s put it into context: In the midst of the financial crisis or Great Recession, I, the council and staff implemented what we termed our “EEE Process.”  “EEE” stood for Efficient, Effective and Economical.  We held several well-attended community meetings.  
All departments went through their budgets.  The council and our boards reviewed what they did as well and where we could do better.  Through it all we wanted to find ways to hold down spending, cut where we could and provide a basis from which to grow our community.  And we did.  We froze wages for two years, found areas to cut costs, reconfigured our capital asset replacement schedule and held off on certain capital purchases and larger projects.  
Many of the ideas the community provided to us were utilized.  In fact, we held our levy to 0 percent for one year even as our local government aid was cut.  Furthermore, we began to plan for even less local government aid than was anticipated.   Any amount that we received over the budgeted allotment was placed into our Stabilization Fund, which was used in part for the aquatic center and for the new library. 
We gathered input from as many sources as possible, engaged the community and worked together toward a common goal.  This was a wonderful partnership between our community, our staff, our appointed boards and the elected council.