An Open Letter to Tom Henry
Dear Mayor Henry:
In 2009, Fort Wayne will recieve a windfall of $40 million from the City Light Lease fund. As promised in your campaign, the public will be consulted. I ask that you don’t spend a dime of that money.
Let’s say we spend that money on another huge project all at once, if that project flops we’re out the money and the reserve that could have been hundreds of millions in the future.
If invested at a conservative rate of 8% (not even close to the markets average of 12%), that money will generate a return of over $3,000,000 – so lets be conservative and use half of that to provide city services. We’ll add money to the pot and Fort Wayne will have an annuity of millions of dollars each year.
Or even more on the Dave Ramsey Plan let’s not use any of the money and in 20 years that $40 million will have compounded to more than $186 million dollars. Now talk about a cash†reserve. While I don’t think that this option is quite realistic, I think the first of spending only half the annualized interest is smart financial planning.
Instead of plopping that money down to cover a one year budget shortfall, lets think for the future of Fort Wayne, not just the present.
Let’s hope we have some leadership in Fort Wayne. Let’s hope they think to the future.
Yours Truly,
Neil Kelty
9:53 pm on June 19th, 2008
Of course the problem is that having that money sit there might lead to more spending so it might just end up disappearing anyway. I like your idea, but if there isn’t enough discipline in current and future leaders, you might be better off putting the money into something they can’t count on to bail them out if they get into financial trouble.
1:35 pm on June 20th, 2008
Mark: I agree this is much to idealistic, it’s sad how bad people are with money these days.
11:55 pm on July 4th, 2008
I would co-sign such a letter if it were to be delivered to the mayor. Good job Neil.