Center Hill Landfill presentation

Center Hill Transmittal, city manager 

The city council is fixin to approve $12 million at tomorrow’s meeting (1.22.26) for another solar energy project.  Remember, the city already has the New Market solar farm. The location for this new project is the Center Hill landfill.

I’m still trying to gather information about what the city council is doing except it doesn’t seem that they’ve made a very good business case for spending $12 million.  By their own admission, it is all about the Green Cincinnati Plan and achieving “carbon neutrality” by 2050. Some, including me, call that a colossal waste of money.

We need to know what due diligence, if any, was carried out by the city council.  For example, good luck trying to find out performance or financial information about the city’s existing solar farm.  How is that working out? Is it performing as projected? Shouldn’t that part of the city council’s due diligence.

Twelve million dollars could cover a lot of neighborhood quality of life needs, maintenance and upgrade of public housing for seniors, food delivery programs. Or greater financial support for the pension system for city employees that is $800 million in the hole.  It just does not make sense to me.

We are looking into Cincinnati’s use of State & Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, which were the pandemic relief funds specifically directed to local governments

Most people are probably under the impression that the “COVID money” for cities were intended to help the cities just “keep the lights on.”  That is not the case.

The Treasury Department used a formula to determine what cities received, not a calculation of a city’s fiscal needs.  As a result, during the COVID years, Cincinnati received more than $150 million in discretionary funds to spend within very loose eligibility requirements.

This is Cincinnati’s original 2021 plan for the COVID money. A records request has been submitted for a more detailed accounting of how those funds were used.

Funding Priorities for Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund 3.24.21

Funding Priorities for Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund Attachment reconciliation highlighted

Funding Priorities for Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund 4.8.21

SLFRF-2025-Recovery-Plan-Performance-Report_Monica-Morton

City-Of-Cincinnati-Ohio_2024-Recovery-Plan_SLT-1806

The city council covered a lot of ground about the city’s current and future finances during their two December meetings. The narrative about the projected $30 million budget deficit and the open talk about an earnings tax increase signal where the city government is headed – an earnings tax increase.

The narrative incudes repeated references to how the city no longer has COVID money. “Oh no! What are we going to do without COVID money?”  “I guess we just have to raise taxes. Isn’t it obvious?” At least that is what the politicians will likely be saying.

Keep in mind that, according to the mayor, the city has recovered from COVID. It is one of his major accomplishments. Presumably, that means that all the lost revenues experienced during COVID, are once again filling the city’s coffers.  Since the primary purpose of ARPA funds was “revenue replacement,” that must mean that the problem is solved. COVID money is no loger needed anyway, right?

Also, most people are under the impression that the city received ARPA money based on how much revenue the city was projected to lose as a result of COVID. But that is not how it worked. The ARPA funding was formula based. I haven’t looked at the formula itself, but formula funding is much easier to distribute and less strict about its use. Chances are that the ARPA funding was greater than needed to cover eligible costs and as a result, there was new or extra spending that occurred with COVID money.

So, we need to examine exactly what the city did with our COVID money.  How much of the COVID spending was “a must have” and how much was “nice to have.” The city was required to file annual reports with the federal government about its use of ARPA money. The 2024 and 2025 reports are posted above.

We will be examining the COVID funding issue and reporting back soon.  My sense is that our examination will provide greater clarity, at least for this part of the politicians’ (and the Cincinnati Futures Commission) “tax increase narrative.”

On December 28, 2025, I posted the following update about the city’s 2025 Covid report:

FB 12.28.25 Update about City Covid Report

When was the last time you heard anyone in City Hall criticizing the academic work of the University of Cincinnati for ANYTHING? And on top of that, have at least two members of city council cheering about it? Probably never before.

Well, that is what took place at the December 8^th meeting of city council’s Budget and Finance Committee. The city’s new Finance Director essentially trashed the quality of UC’s economic forecasting and reported that he has instead brought economic forecasting “in-house.”   And you had Councilmembers Cramerding and Jeffreys crow about how great it is that the city has dumped UC.

That was it. No explanation of what the “dissatisfaction” withthe economic forecasting of our university was all about. Obviously, behind the scenes they all talked about it and decided the public did not need to know any more than that. I guess it is none of our business? I wonder what UC thinks about what was said?

I thought it was so outrageous that I’ve written to the Finance Director with a few questions (with a copy to the head of UC’s Economics Center).

In episode 41 of “Citizen Watchdog with Todd Zinser,” which is in the works, we are going to connect the dots about how bringing economic forecasting, in-house, is related to the projected deficit and the future “revenue enhancements,” e.g. tax increases, which were also mentioned quite matter-of-factly by the Finance Director .

UC’s Income Tax Forecast 2020 -2026 ; the Tentative Tax Budget presentation: and the email to the Finance Director follow:

UC’s Income Tax Forecast FY2022-2026

Presentation Tentative Tax Budget

Email to Finance Director 12.19.25

I am including this case in my research library in the folder,” That’s Where the Money Is.”  The folder is a collection of cases of local public corruption from across the U.S.

This case involves the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce which is not a local government but these days the line between government and non-profit organizations is becoming more and more blurred, especially here in Cincinnati.

Moving forward, we will be including reports about fraud involving non-profits in the folder.

In this case, the guy was very, very greedy. Most embezzlers have some human condition such as gambling or drug addiction, substantial debt, or the need to finance an extramarital affair, or some other secret life. This guy was making $275,000 a year but felt the need to embezzle another $213,000 to fund an even more privileged lifestyle.

He used 5 different embezzlement schemes over the course of several years. which is extraordinary.

By my count, Cincinnati grants funding to almost 200 non-profits (including 2 local Chambers of Commerce) with little or no oversight. As I have stated previously, in my view, the city’s practice of funding so many nonprofits is a high risk for fraud.

District of Minnesota _ Former President and CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce Pleads Guilty to Fraud _ United States Department of Justice