When a worldwide recession plunged the economy to its lowest depths, Kokomo was among the hardest hit places in the country.

The crisis caused ballooning budget deficits in cities across Indiana, and it was even worse for Kokomo: local unemployment approached historic highs, and while in bankruptcy, Chrysler and Delphi stopped paying their taxes. To make things worse, the size of local government had grown bloated under previous administrations.

Many other cities in Indiana simply raised taxes to close their budget holes. But Greg Goodnight was determined not to make things even worse for Kokomo families still struggling to make ends meet.

Goodnight found creative solutions to save taxpayer money and made tough choices to put Kokomo's fiscal house back in order. According to the Kokomo Tribune, Goodnight was "serious about bridging the budget shortfall...without tax increases, short-term loans, or accounting tricks." Not only did he do just that, but the belt-tightening budgets he passed received, according to the Tribune, "for the first time, perhaps in the city's history" completely clean audits.

Innovative Ideas to Save Taxpayer Money

• Froze wages for city employees, including his own salary
• Consolidated city and county emergency dispatch, saving taxpayers $676,000 each year
• Trash pick-up was moved to one side of the street, making street department routes more efficient and eliminating the need to waste costly fuel driving up and down the same roads twice. The idea created savings of $65,000 annually in salaries and benefits, $24,000 annually in a truck leases, and cut fuel costs by 30%. The plan was recognized nationally by the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government with a "Bright Idea" award.
• Kokomo established a health-care clinic for city employees to cut health care costs paid for by taxpayers by $1 million a year
• Went line-by-line rooting out waste from the city budget, eliminating waste that no one remembered existed, like a $9,000 salary for a recording secretary to attend just a few meetings each year • Ambulance services were shifted back to the local hospitals they serve
• Eliminated paid lunches for city employees, giving a better value to taxpayers
• Instituted fees for take-home cars, and reduced the mileage reimbursement rate
• Replaced traffic lights downtown with stop signs, saving $99,000 annually in maintenance controller costs

Cutting the Size of Local Government

• Cut the city work force by 12 percent, to its lowest levels in a generation
• Cut millions from the city's budget each year, underspending it by $6 million in 2009

In the last four years, Greg Goodnight has made local government smaller, found millions of dollars in innovative cost savings, and consistently underspent the city budget. It's why the Kokomo Tribune called Greg Goodnight "the most fiscally conservative office holder in Howard County."