McRoy tries to once again scam the voters | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

This time we have it on tape in his own words

    At the October 16, 2012 Candidate's Forum, Jay McRoy unwittingly let his true attitude about the county's budget process show through his façade of "conservatism." As we have said on a number of occasions, he and the other four members of the Gang of Five bring a certain mindset to their responsibility to manage the county's finances. It can be simply described as: Ok, its budget time. How much more are we going to spend next year than we said last year we were going to spend. Then when we determine that we'll decide how much to raise taxes, or alternatively, to rob the savings account." And therein is why Beaufort County is in such dire financial straits, with its people burdened with burgeoning government

    Here's the way he expressed it:



    Now what you need to pick up from the video is the part where McRoy says: "there are only two ways...you can either raise the tax rate or grow the tax base." What he does not mention is the third way you can approach budgeting: Cut expenditures. It is the classical mindset of the Tax and Spend, Spend and Tax liberal. His basic premise is that you're bound to spend what you spent last year and then some. His way of thinking only looks at how much more you are going to spend.
Jay McRoy, at the Beaufort County Candidates' forum, expresses his brand of politics. Whether he is a moderate or a Liberal is open for discussion, but one issue that is not arguable - Jay McRoy is no (self-professed) Conservative: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    For liberals like Mr. McRoy the only real issue is "how much are we going to raise taxes?"

    You could see this in some of the other candidates when they talked about the ill-fated Pantego Wind Farm. They see it as more revenue, so they immediately think in terms of what they can spend it for but never about how much they can reduce taxes for the people. That mindset was also displayed by the so-called "conservative" Gary Brinn.

    The other part of what is wrong with Mr. McRoy's financial management can be seen in a campaign mailer he sent out October 18, 2012. The mailer, in which he says he: "Helped project 2012-2013 County Budget expenses lower than what was budgeted in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012."

    Now don't miss the nuance of his choice of words. What he did not say was "I voted to cut spending." He tries to make you think he did, but he carefully spins his words otherwise. Instead he says he worked to project lower budget expenses than what was budgeted in prior years. That is the same fraud the Democrats in Washington perpetrate on the non-thinking public when they talk about "cutting the budget" when what they are really claiming is they reduced the growth of spending. The approve programs that call for massive increases in spending, then but those programs back a bit and claim they have cut the budget. They spend more, but claim they "saved" money by not spending as much as they "planned" to spend. It's Smoke and Mirrors accounting. Mr. McRoy is a wizard at it.

    The problem, of course is that it is dishonest. And McRoy knows it, or he would have not phrased his words that way.

    Actually a more accurate characterization of Mr. McRoy is that he is a fraud. He says things to try to paint a picture of being fiscally conservative when really he is a "Tax and Spend, Spend and Tax" liberal, two-faced politician.

    Take another example of one of this tricks.

    He has in the past taken credit for "holding the tax rate constant." But what he does not tell you is that the way the rate was held constant was that he dipped into our savings account to fund his higher spending.

    Hood Richardson has ranted and raved about this fraud McRoy and the Gang of Five have perpetrated on the people by asking that the budget document show actual revenues and expenditures rather than "budgeted" amounts.

    What's the difference you may ask? All the difference in the world. When you use prior year budgeted numbers you never know how much was actually spent. It is a favorite way to pad a budget. Here's how it's done.

    Say one department was budgeted a million dollars last year but only actually spent $750,000. When it comes time to determine next year's budget for that department what these fraudsters do is start with not $750,000 but with a million again. Immediately they have padded the budget by $250,000. They know they have this "hidden" money they can use during the year for whatever they want. But by including it in the "projected" budget they justify raising taxes while all the time knowing they could actually lower taxes by approving a budget with $750,000 for that department.

    Mr. McRoy sat on the Board of Commissioner when the greatest fraudster in Beaufort County's recent history came before the board with proposed school building projects. Jeff Moss and Robert Belcher would come before the board and say something like: "We were budgeted for $3 million but the building "only cost" 2.5 million so we want to use the half million we 'saved' on this project that was not included in the original plan." Trouble is, when it was all over and done with a $33 million bond package cost the taxpayers $39.4 million.

    This is the kind of accounting CPA Jay McRoy is famous for. Yet he campaigns as though he is a fiscal conservative.

    Last spring Hood Richardson and Stan Deatherage proposed about $2 million in spending reductions. These were actual expenditure reductions, not "projected budget amounts" like Mr. McRoy uses. Jay McRoy vote "NO" on those proposed actual spending reductions and then when he campaigned, he claimed he reduced expenses. The exact same thing can be said for the other four of the Gang of Five (Jerry Langley, Ed Booth, Robert Cayton and Al Klemm). They are fraudsters. To prove it, the next time you hear one of them talking about the budget ask them this simple question: Tell me which department spent less last year than they did the year before and the year before that and which spent more. And tell us which line items showed a decrease in actual expenditures. But don't expect a straight answer.

    The problem with McRoy and the Gang of Five's approach to managing the county's fiscal affairs is that they don't manage expenditures. They use "incremental budgeting."

    Click here to read a more detailed discussion of "incremental budgeting."