Beaufort County Government Keeps Too Much of YOUR Money in its Fund Balance | Eastern North Carolina Now

What this all boils down to is simply: Who is better served by government retaining too much of YOUR money, or is there a better remedy to that uneasy conundrum?

    Beaufort County Government raises money by taxation to provide government for the People of our community. Your local government raises that money through a statutory provision known as the Machinery Act, which gives your government the Police Power to annually take your property.

    Additionally, it is most important that a county government keep a minimum of 20% of their yearly budget (the General Fund) in what is known as the Fund Balance, colloquially known as the Rainy Day Fund, in order to effect a more desirable bond rating. Beaufort County Government has historically kept a Fund Balance of around 25% of the General Fund to retain a more pristine bond rating, but now, due to an over taxation regarding Ad Valorem taxes, and now with Bidenflation lifting the amount of money spent with businesses to buy goods - the local sales tax - is escalating in an inflationary manner, adding mightily to that Fund Balance, now around 35% of the General Fund.

    As a county commissioner of a county with a great propensity of lower middleclass folks, many of whom consider themselves my constituents, I cannot in good conscience allow this perfect evidence of too much money remaining in the county government's treasury; not when that money would be better served in the pockets and bank accounts of our hard working, tax paying citizens. The process of returning some of that excess in the county treasury to its rightful providers is what I consider a better formof government sponsored "economic development" - let the People keep money not needed by a governing body that is prone to eventually waste much of it anyway.

    Understanding the reality of better governing as well as anyone, serving nearly 22 years as a Beaufort County Commissioner while continually in the Conservative minority, I am now adamantly advocating for the cutting of the tax rate by 10% for this upcoming fiscal 2022 /2023 governing year (July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023). To put a finer point on this initiative, for just this one fiscal year, this to be soon motioned by Commissioners Deatherage and Richardson: If one is taxed $4,000.00 for their home, their vehicles, their business equipment, or other land holdings, they will instead pay $3,600.00 in taxes on their next tax bill for fiscal 2022 /2023.

    Incredibly, you might claim this as a political gimmick, but I will counter claim that this 10% reduction in money, not held by your governing managers, is 10% less taxes that these Democratic Socialists, bolstered by Nominal Republicans as caucus partners, will be able to waste, thus providing all of Beaufort County at least one year of better government. More efficient governing, born from starving a government entity and its burgeoning bureaucracy, is always the more effective "gimmick," and if we are fortuitous in making it so, it could very well lead to further long term changes for the better here in Beaufort County's self-governing.

    In my nearly 4 years since I have rejoined the Beaufort County Commissioners, it is my well considered opinion that these caucus partners, acting as a majority, have wasted a minimum of 5 million dollars of YOUR money through poorly considered budgeting, unwise policy, and completely inadequate oversight in both small and large chunks of abject poor governance. If you find this analysis to be incosnsistent with a lesser truth to the contrary, I advise all to seek the transparency of knowledge, where you can start here on BCN, which has done the best we could with the materials on hand to allow you a window into what your government does for, or to you. Remember, government operates best, and the public is better served when it governs least; diligently applying itself to make the necessary changes to become smaller in scope, and more effecient in operation.

     This government of yours, at the federal, state and local level, is at its /our core a self-governed Representative Republic, signifying in complete simplicity: "You get the government you deserve." If you are not satisfied with what you see, and what you know, and you have the ambition and the patriotic courage to help the process to effect the change necessary to have a more honest, a more Conservative attitude toward positive change in your government, please make this opportunity to do so ... that time is overwhelmingly now.

    In a Representative Republic, politicians and community governing leaders, such as myself and the better of the others, can NOT act alone ... As constituents (as I am one too to many politicians), we must all pull together to better our People, and their lot in this World spinning ever faster out of control.

poll#146

Should Beaufort County's Commissioners fund more projects, while adding to the county government work force, or, should these servants to the People work to cut wasteful spending, and give the taxpayers of Beaufort County a break on taxes, possibly starting a new purpose for their existence?

  Yes, please spend more; so much needs to be done in Beaufort County, and we need more government employees doing it.

  No, please work to be frugal; more mindful that this is the public's money, and return to taxpayers what is not absolutely needed.

  Why should I pay attention to stuff?

697 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?