Claim: The city of Atlanta has $56 million in its reserves.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Atlanta City Hall
text: meeting places for city business (including hotels and grocery stores), in 1853 mayor of Atlanta John Mims purchased the four-acre (16,000 m²) “Peters’s Reserve” from Richard Peters for $5,000. On this land (current site of the Georgia State Capitol) was built a two-story brick structure (with an additional two-story cupola) for the city hall as well as some court functions. Each floor was 70 by providing nearly of space. It opened on October 17, 1854 and served for three decades during which time it served as campgrounds for the occupying Union army during the war and was briefly the state

title: Shirley Franklin
text: without the tax increase, layoffs and pay cuts of Atlanta public safety officials would be imminent. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, in December 2008 Franklin announced that 222 city workers would lose their jobs to help fill a projected $50 million to $60 million budget shortfall. Most remaining city workers, including firefighters, will work fewer hours and suffer a pay cut as part of the budget cuts. Mayor Shirley Franklin has said that the deficits in the city of Atlanta are not because of excess city spending. In fact, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle city spending actually ran

title: Peachtree-Pine shelter
text: in private donations have also been in part due to active opposition by neighborhood organizations. In 2008, for instance, the Whole Foods grocery store on Ponce de Leon Avenue cancelled a fund raising for the shelter after the Midtown Ponce Security Alliance had threatened the store with boycott. In late 2008 the City of Atlanta shut off water service to the shelter because of more than $160,000 in unpaid water and sewer bills. The Task Force won an injunction to have water service restored and also sued the City, claiming the City had been using a multi-pronged approach to try

title: Atlanta
text: $9.5 billion into Georgia's economy in 2017, with Atlanta garnering most of the projects. As a result, by the following year, Atlanta emerged as one of the all time most popular destinations for film production globally. Compared to other American cities, Atlanta's economy in the past had been disproportionately affected by the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent recession, with the city's economy earning a ranking of 68 among 100 American cities in a September 2014 report due to an elevated unemployment rate, declining real income levels, and a depressed housing market. From 2010 to 2011, Atlanta saw a 0.9%

title: Mary Norwood
text: pensions, police overtime, and subsidies to several funds. Atlanta’s solid waste and capital finance funds were also downgraded. In June 2009, the City Council voted 8-7, to increase the Atlanta property tax rate for general operations from 7.12 mills to 10.12 mills, a 42 percent increase. Atlanta is one of the few big cities nationwide to raise property taxes that year. Mary Norwood voted against this increase, insisting that there was money to be found within Atlanta’s budget. Norwood filed to run in the 2017 Atlanta mayoral election in October 2016. Similar to the 2009 race, she has called for

title: SunTrust Park
text: Exhibit Hall Authority issued up to $397 million in bonds for the project. The county raised an additional $14 million from transportation taxes, and $10 million cash from businesses in the Cumberland Community Improvement District. The Braves contributed the remaining money for the park and The Battery Atlanta. In March 2015, a security filing from Braves owners Liberty Media allotted $672 million for SunTrust Park and $452 million for The Battery Atlanta, which adds up to a total cost of above $1.1 billion. The Braves will spend $181 million over 30 years to help pay off the county's bonds on

title: Atlanta Housing Authority
text: housing projects would be completed. For whites, there was Capitol Homes and Clark Howell Homes. For African Americans, the AHA built Herndon Homes, John Hope Homes, John Egan Homes, and Harris Homes. This amounted to 4,000 housing units accommodating 20,000 people. The total investment was $21 million to that point. City historian Franklin Garrett remarked humorously, "By 1940, federal funds have built considerably more housing in Atlanta than Federal representative William T. Sherman destroyed here in 1864", referring to the Union general who ordered the burning of Atlanta. With the onset of the war, Atlanta (unlike other cities) paused the

title: English Avenue and Vine City
text: crucial to the modern workforce. As of summer 2014, they have graduated their first class of trainees. There are multiple efforts underway to encourage and promote home ownership in Vine City and English Avenue. Invest Atlanta has a trust fund which provides up to 10% of the downpayment for a first time homeowner, up to $15,000. Home Atlanta 4.0 provides up to 5% of the house cost, but waives the first-time buyer requirement. Invest Atlanta and the Arthur M. Blank Foundation have also recently partnered up to provide $30 million in seed money for innovative and transformative non-profits to help

title: William H. Rogers Jr.
text: since January 2012, replacing James M. Wells, III. As of June 30, 2017 the bank has total assets of $207 billion and total deposits of $160 billion. In 2012, under his first year of tenure, profits jumped to US$1.96 billion, partly thanks to the sale of shares in the Coca-Cola Company. Rogers is a member of the Federal Advisory Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. In 2012, he earned US$2.83 million. Rogers is a board member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Operation HOPE, and chair of Achieve Atlanta. He is a member of Emory

title: Fund accounting
text: were compared with the estimate of $35 million. The $1 million difference was recorded as a credit to the fund balance. The city spent $31 million of its $34 million appropriation. A credit of $3 million was applied to the fund balance for the unspent amount. When the current fiscal period ended, its appropriation expired. The balance remaining in the general fund at that time is considered "unexpended". City government agencies are not allowed to spend the unexpended balance, even if their expenditures during the now-ended fiscal period were less than their share of the expired appropriation. A new appropriation

title: Mary Norwood
text: in June 2008, which did not pass. The City of Atlanta then responded by reducing public safety personnel and imposed a 10 percent pay cut on city workers to balance the budget. In both instances, Norwood asked the City to reduce its spending on areas other than public safety personnel. The City of Atlanta’s budget was said to be balanced for several years. However, by March 2009, Atlanta’s bond rating was downgraded by Standard & Poor’s, a key credit rating agency. This downgrade resulted from four years of operating deficits, as well as longer-term pressures associated with the Atlanta’s underfunded

title: Richard M. Daley
text: Rahm Emanuel estimated at $1.2 billion when under-funded pension funds were included. The Daley administration's expenditures exceeded revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars a year. In August 2010, Fitch Ratings downgraded the city's bond credit rating, citing the administration's use of reserve funds for general operating expenses and under-funding of its pension funds, and noted that the city faced rising fixed operating costs yet lacked plans for new revenue. Wall Street analysts noted that the Daley administration began drawing on the city's reserves as early as 2006, before the 2008–2012 global recession. "While there had been sound economic growth

title: Model Cities Program
text: Detroit received widespread acclaim for its leadership in the program, which used $490 million to try to turn a section of the city (with 134,000 inhabitants) into a model city. In Atlanta there was a battle between competing visions. The city's political and business elite, and city planners, along with Atlanta's black middle class, wanted the federal funding to accelerate the economic growth of the entire city. They sought to protect the central business district property values from nearby slums and to construct new revenue-generating structures. However local community activists rallied poor residents in opposition to these plans. They said

title: Bank of America Plaza (Atlanta)
text: the lobby, health club, and conference facility was completed It has also achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification. The building and property management were awarded Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce E3 Liquid Assets, a recognition in water sustainability. Midtown Atlanta's Midtown Alliance also recognized it as an EcoDistrict Green Luminary for its significant commitment to sustainability practices. Beginning in 2016, $15 million will be invested over the next few years to significantly modernize the common areas including the lobby, west wing and some deferred maintenance. According to published reports in Commercial Property News and Commercial Mortgage

title: Atlanta Technology Center
text: a reprieve. On Saturday September 26, the landlord at the Atlanta Technology Center announced that the lease for MOM Corp would be terminated on September 30 of that month. In 2000 an entity controlled by the developer Julian LeCraw & Co. paid $20.5 million to acquire the Atlanta Technology Center. Julian LeCraw Jr., the chief executive officer of the parent company, said that his firm acquired the development because the prominence of the area was increasing. In 2000 LeCraw said that the land that contains the complex was likely worth $200,000 per acre. During June 2000 the complex had of

title: Ivan Allen Jr.
text: Authority (MARTA), which would take over the old Atlanta Transit system and build the MARTA rail system. The $13 million Memorial Arts Center (now the Woodruff Arts Center) was established as a memorial to the victims of the 1962 Orly plane crash. The $10 Million Atlanta Civic Center and the $100 million Peachtree Center complex were all built during Allen's mayoralty. Between 1965 and 1969, convention business in Atlanta doubled, with 400,000 delegates spending $60 million. Mayor Allen also played a key role in bringing Major League Sports to Atlanta. In a politically risky move, he backed the construction of

title: Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority
text: fleet" testing in 2015. In 2012, CQ310 cars 111 and 112 were converted into work cars. On December 1, 2017, MARTA posted a notice of intent to award a $146 million contract for the "Rail Car Life Extension Program" to Kinkisharyo International LLC. On January 26, 2018, Kinkisharyo signed the $146 million Rail Car refurbishment contract. The work starts with 118 cars, with 94 more options. The Atlanta Streetcar, is a modern streetcar route that is powered by overhead catenary and operates in mixed vehicle traffic. The system was constructed by the City of Atlanta and was integrated into MARTA

title: Mary Norwood
text: Democratic Party spent at least $165,000 to attack Norwood. This, along with an eight percent jump in voters for the runoff contributed to Reed winning the mayoral runoff election by about 700 votes out of approximately 84,000 votes total. Norwood campaigned on a platform of fiscal responsibility, and in a political advertisement she asserted that the city of Atlanta had misplaced $100 million. However, the city administration disputed the claim, explaining that $116 million was borrowed from the Watershed Management Department for city projects, and the money is being repaid by those departments. Norwood voted against the tax increase proposal

title: Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport
text: the hangar. Delta's lease originally was scheduled to expire in 2010, but the airline returned the lease to the City of Atlanta in 2005 as part of its bankruptcy settlement. The city collected an insurance settlement of almost $900,000 as a result of the cancellation. Restaurant contracts at the airport are worth about $3 billion and complaints over the contracts fit into a historical pattern of allegations of "cronyism and political influence" at the airport. Concession company SSP America sued the City of Atlanta to challenge the methods used to award contracts, but this suit was dropped in 2012. Contracts

title: Peachtree-Pine shelter
text: been estimated to be worth $9 million or more by Alan Wexler, president of real estate research firm Databank Inc. Thus some observers, such as city councilman Kwanza Hall, who represents nearby neighborhoods, had expected the Task Force to sell the property. "With the amount of money that they could get for that building, they could invest in a facility that could really help people who need help", Hall had said. However, Bob Cramer, who was then the chairman of the board of directors of Peachtree-Pine, stated that there's "not enough money at Fort Knox" to get the task force