Birmingham is in the hole thanks to Steve Sayler and Larry Langford...

Well, not a surprise to me, it turns out that Birmingham is $20M in the red although Steve Sayler's, former mayor Langford's handpicked finance director, after the budget report was released yesterday. 

It's gets even better, Sayler stepped down as finance director yesterday morning after acting mayor Carole Smitherman noticed that there were conflicts between the data the City Council received and Sayler's data.  Then Smitherman has spent the better part of the last 24 hours trying to save face by saying she will do everything in her power not to eliminate any jobs to get the city out of the red.   Oh what a web we weave...

Now, I don't directly blame Smitherman for Langford's fools because she can't control what the mayor did when she was Council President.  However, it has been known amongst us in the know that Sayler was involved with the bond swaps at Jefferson County, so when he crept to the City of Birmingham with Langford most smelt trouble.

Smitherman and the City Council will have to figure out what needs to be done because the Fiscal Year 2010 budget was stuffed with numbers from the Fiscal Year 2009, so everybody is in the dark on this.  Now according to media reports, Smitherman, the City Council, and a number of business leaders will be apart of a task force to figure out how Birmingham can fill this $20M hole without laying anyone off.

I say heads should roll including Deborah Vance-Bowie since she was over Sayler and requested the reports over the summer when the budget was up for debate.  Also Sayler should be prosecuted for placing fuzzy numbers in the place of real numbers to make this look good to Langford who was swearing Birmingham had a $28M surplus.  As much as I want to see things funded, repaired, and constructed, but you can't put the city in the hole to get what you want.  You gotta pay the bills and fund the already existing things first then explore what else you can do afterwards with the final balance.