The budget...or an easy way to waste your money | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Would you write a check for the same amount as your County taxes, hand it to a stranger and say "I am trusting you to spend this money in my best interest."? That is what almost all of us do with our taxes each year.

    And each year we are disappointed with County government, but we write another check next year and expect better results. Even worse, in our disappointment, we continue to elect the same people over and over. We have had the same board of County Commissioners for at least the past eight years. The argument can easily be made that the Commissioners must be doing what the public wants because they keep getting elected.

    The record of failure for the Beaufort County Board is too long to list here but I will present a few things to make my point: overbuilt the schools 2,000 seats in a 7,000 seat system, overran a 33 million dollar school building budget by at least 8 million dollars, built US Highway 17 in the wrong place, spent over 6 million dollars on economic development with very little to show for it, spent an 8 million dollar fund surplus down to nothing, raised property taxes, mismanaged a hospital into bankruptcy , failed to provide adequate supervision of several departments.

    Here we are again, doing another annual budget by just adding expansion items to the last budget and handing the taxpayer the bill. This is an election year. So the Gang of Five led by Jay McRoy raised taxes 6 percent last year. This sucked another 1.6 million dollars out of the private economy in Beaufort County--the very economy that we depend on for our economic wellbeing.

    The budget that is being considered was assembled by the County Manager based on continuing the operations of the County. While the budget is recommended by the Manager, it can have no force or effect until approved by the majority of the commissioners. You may ask, "Why did the Manager submit a continuing operations budget, why did he not try to save us some money and cut the budget"? How did he know to submit this particular budget? The answer is because the majority of the Commissioners wanted a continuing operations budget with expansion items. They wanted to spend more money this year than they spent last year. How do I know that? The Gang of Five sent a clear message last year when they raised taxes 6 percent. It is just common sense that raising taxes means we are spending more money. Always remember, when they raise taxes in one year, they get the same amount of increased funds from you the next year, the next year and etc.

    Guess what, the County has such a small amount of savings the Gang of Five will have to raise taxes again this time next year if they are re-elected. The only hope to hold the line on taxes is to reduce spending. Spending can only be reduced by changing out enough the Gang of Five to have a conservative majority on the board. Members of the Gang of Five who are up for election this year are: Jay McRoy, Jerry Langley with the Robert Cayton seat being vacant. There are three chances to make the needed changes.

    The budget book compares the budget amount for 2012 with the proposed budget amount for the year 2013 to explain differences in spending. This comparison is not good practice and is not used in business and industry. We are dealing with a budget which is a plan of spending and is sometimes changed during the year to reflect changes in income and unexpected increases in spending. Two recent events that changed budgets were the economic down turn that reduced sales tax collections and Hurricane Irene. The general fund summary shows a decrease of $870,394 for the coming year. The actual increase in spending this year is estimated to be $168,958. This is a swing of increased spending in the amount of $1,039,352. Much of it is accounted for in the Irene spending.

    The proposed expansion budget is $1,044,645. This is not a true expansion budget. It is a mixture of expansion spending and capital spending. A true expansion budget would be additions to spending that would be there year after year. Examples of expansion spending are the pay raise for all employees of 2 percent and the almost 0.5 percent increase in retirement. An example of capital spending is the up grade to the computer system at Social Services. We would not buy a new computer system every year at a cost of $180,000.

    And now we are faced with fixing the problem of the existing jail. But the question is: How are we going to pay for it?

    In a future article we will examine how to cut at least 2 million dollars out of this budget. That is approximately the amount of money needed to make the payment for the new jail. Electing a conservative board of commissioners will result in building the new jail with out a tax increase. We will need another 6 or 7 percent increase in property taxes to build a new jail unless we reduce spending. It will be more if we build off site and transport prisoners from a new jail-gym-office complex to the court house.

    So you and every voter you know has a choice to make in November. Do we spend more and more and thus raise taxes, or do we cut spending. Who you elect will determine your answer to this question. You will get one vote for commissioner in November. How you vote will determine whether or not we continue this reckless spending and whether we continue to put a burden on every home and business in Beaufort County.

    The choice is yours.
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