SCHEPER: WITHOUT NEW CONTRACT 'NOT A LOT OF OPTIONS OTHER THAN LAYOFFS'

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THE RIVER CITY NEWS MORE COVINGTON NEWS THAN ANY OTHER SOURCE

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EXCLUSIVE

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Mayor Scheper talks to ROMA

The "brutal facts" of Mayor Chuck Scheper's state of the city address were reiterated Wednesday night during a meeting of the Residents of Mainstrasse Association at Chez Nora. Two months since that speech and the unveiling of Scheper's 10-point plan to right Covington's ship, many steps have been taken to follow through on the new mayor's goals. Some of the brutal facts however are still just as brutal as they were in late January, including the rising costs of health care and pension contributions as well as the lack of a new contract between the City and public employee unions. Fourteen months now without an agreement, Scheper, in January, had hoped for a new contract within sixty days. He admitted Wednesday that that deadline will pass.

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"Eighty percent of our costs are people costs," the mayor said. As for employee health care contributions, a sticking point in the negotiations, "they understand they need to have skin in the game," Scheper said. "We don't have a lot of options other than layoffs and nobody wants that."

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OTHER UPDATES FROM THE MAYOR: 

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• The looming budget deficit in Covington is still a source of immediate concern. The surplus fund will be $300,000 on June 30, far short of the mayor's ideal range of $2 - 4 million. "We are well below the safety net of where we should be for a city our size," Scheper said, adding that since 2009 Covington has seen a decline in payroll tax revenue after twenty-five straight years of steady growth in spite of concurrent population loss. 
• The internal department-by-department reviews have begun with police and fire first on the list. Scheper promised transparency with the reviews. "Once we vet the review and the information we will share it with the community," he said. "This will not be something that just gathers dust. It will be actionable."
• Scheper's marketing team is being assembled and will be led by Commissioner Shawn Masters
• The barrier removal team assigned to identify the difficulties encountered when doing business in or with the City has started to highlight some issues
• Catalytic Development Fund is close to its goal of $10 million that it hopes to use to bring investments to the city. The mayor said that the $10 million could be leveraged to create up to $100 million in investments. 
• Scheper also touted the new incentives regarding payroll taxes as he aims to lower Covington's rate. The revenue created by the new businesses established in town because of the tax incentives will go toward extending the same incentives to existing businesses the following year. "That way everybody is incentivized to bring in new businesses," he said. "We may be the only city in the country that has that kind of message and we may get some play on a national level."
• The new C+V=G branding and the three-dimensional cubes on which the logo is attached will soon fill empty storefronts in the city, "to help clean them up and help spread the message," the mayor said. "We want you to wear the pins and wear them proudly because we are all ambassadors."
• Trivia: Scheper said that when he asked for branding help from Landor CEO and Covington resident Mary Zalla, her team actually came up with three different logos. The C+V=G was based on a theme of "clarity". The other two themes, which Scheper also liked before ultimately making his choice, were "transparency" and "humanity".

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