If you are a Beaufort County taxpayer you need to read this | Eastern North Carolina Now

   Publisher's Note: This article was originally publisher by our friends at the Beaufort Observer.

It documents the waste of $22.4 million by the Gang of Five county commissioners who are now saying they just have to raise taxes

    The budget workshop sessions by the County Commissioners have been an amazing spectacle. We'll spare you the nitty-gritty details (and it is gritty) but here's the sum of it. They strained over specks while ignoring the log in their eye.

    We realize that the "straining" (to cut some line items a little bit) was just for show so those who want to vote for a tax increase can say they "tried to cut but there just was not enough that could be cut to avoid raising taxes." But that is such an absurdly false statement that it defies credulity. Here's the truth:

    The truth is that the reason the County is facing what the County Manager calls a "revenue problem" is that they have been engaged in deficit spending, at least since 2004 (when the bond issue was proposed to the voters). Just for the record, here's a recap.

• The Commissioners approved a School Board request for $33 million for school facilities for half the schools when the School Board's own study said they could fix ALL of them for $31,774,023.

• They then proceeded to spend $39.4 on just seven of the schools and made up the $6.4 million difference by taking money away from other places they now say they need money for. That in and of itself accounts for the shortfall they are now claiming they must raise taxes to offset. And that does not include the interest the tax payers will have to pay on the un-necessary bonds.

• Commissioner Hood Richardson presented a plan that would have fixed the schools for less than $12 million but it was defeated 5-2.

• Two Commissioners (Langley and McRoy) tried to muscle personal family favors from the school superintendent in return for their votes on the school budget. This provoked the specter of another law suit, so the County Manager and then chairman (McRoy) crafted the "Chickengate Agreement" to give the schools more money every year for several years in return for the School Board not suing the board or any of the commissioners. That has cost the county taxpayers at least $6 million more than would have been normally expected to be spent on schools. That $6 million itself is more than enough to eliminate the need for a tax increase this year.

• The Gang of Five in the 5-2 fiscal votes on the Board of Commissioners approved over $2.5 million in capital outlay projects over the last four years that could have been delayed. That in and of itself accounts for the shortfall they are now claiming they must raise taxes to offset.

• As Warren Smith has documented here, these same five commissioners have allowed the "Economic Development Commission's budget and the Industrial Parks ... combined, to remove $8,494,000 from the available cash and credit of Beaufort County government since 2002." That in and of itself accounts for the shortfall they are now claiming they must raise taxes to offset.

    Thus, the School Board and five members of the Board of Commissioners (Cayton, Langley, Booth, McRoy and Klemm) have overseen the wasting of $14.4 million in just the last six years and $22.4 million since 2002 that depleted the County's reserve (fund balance) account and now presents them with the problem they now face.

    Any one of these imbroglios could be blamed for the current "budget shortfall" but combined they amount to staggering fiscal irresponsibility by the Gang of Five commissioners. And notice we have not even mentioned the Hospital in all that.

    We'll have more on the current debate, but you really can't understand the current situation without knowing the background that led up to this "need to raise taxes."