Beaufort County Liberals Declare Budget Victory | Eastern NC Now

    The liberal Gang of Five Beaufort County Commissioners declared victory at the County Commissioner meeting on June 4th with the passing of the 2012/2013 budget. Commissioners Deatherage and Richardson voted against the budget, with McRoy, Langley, Booth, Cayton and Klemm voting to increase spending more than one million dollars beyond the projected actual for the 2011/2012 budget year. McRoy and Langley are running for re-election this year.

    This is the earliest any budget has been approved during the past 20 years. Another record may have been set with commissioners spending less time than ever in reviewing budget issues. The coalition of the Gang of Five, beginning about 6 years ago, has led to streamlined decision making on the board. The Gang of Five has given us the 8 to 10 million dollar over run on a 33 million dollar school building bond, chicken gate, an SBI investigation of commissioners, the useless location of US Highway 17, and the more than 50 million dollar loss of the hospital. They do not spend much time thinking or examining alternatives on any issues regardless of how important the issue may be.

    Jay McRoy made the motion to approve the budget with Jerry Langley making the second. Both are up for election this year and seem to be very confident the voters will return them to office. McRoy tried to male himself look like a budget cutter by proposing reductions o $258,823. However, each of these items had been challenged during budget deliberations. McRoy proposed reducing overtime in the Sheriff's department which is impossible because the overtime is caused by deputies having to work over in order to handle cases that come up close to shift change. What was cut is a pittance toward what could be cut. McRoy is running for election and the Gang of Five set him up t look like a budget cutter. This after he raised taxes 1.5 million last year.
Beaufort County Commissioner Hood Richardson making himself perfectly clear: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    The conservative members of the board, Deatherage and Richardson have no say in reducing costs. A motion to reduce spending two million dollars was promptly voted down by the Gang of Five. The Gang of Five is composed of three liberal Democrats, Booth, Langley and Cayton, and two registered Republicans, McRoy and Klemm. I say registered Republicans because they have rarely if ever voted for Republican principles to say nothing of being conservative. It is because of the re-election of McRoy and Klemm that we have the Arthur Williams and Jerry Evans problems. Improving the Republican party means we have to cast out these disloyal people.

    As has been mentioned in other Beaufort observer articles spending has gone up in Beaufort County 19.5 percent since the 2010 revaluation. Taxes are still on the way up. Whether we build a new jail or not taxes will have to be increased nest year. There are two reasons. We are spending money as fast as it comes in. The second reason is next year is not an election year.

    The only way Beaufort County citizens will see a reduction in spending and taxes is to replace both of the liberal Republicans or two of the liberal Democrats with two true conservatives.