July 21, 2005 Budget will be main topic at commission meeting

The July Commission Meeting is today at 5:00 p.m. in the large courtroom in the old section of the Courthouse.

The Budget Committee, "committee" is a misnomer of sorts since this "committee" is made up of the entire commission, will recommend general fund and school budgets today to the whole commission.

The proposal will be to budget $3.1 million new dollars for the schools (see my post of July 20).
The proposal for the general government budget for law enforcement, courts, planning, assessor, county court clerk, and all other offices is to approve a deficit spending plan and to draw down the county's "savings," or fund balance, to cover the shortfall of $760,000.

NOTE: The original shortfall for the county was $460,000 until 9 commissioners, taking a cue from Commissioner Herbert Harville, agreed to take $300,000 out of the county budget and give that to the schools on top of the growth money.

I keep hearing that a number of commissioners are still contemplating throwing a wheel tax increase into the mix--and they'll say it's a fairer tax because it hits "everyone." Well, as Commissioner Reinhardt said, a wheel tax doesn't hit everyone. It doesn't tax McDonald's. It taxes the lady or gentleman, young or old, working the counter at McDonald's for minimum wage. It taxes the '95 Chevy with 150,000 miles on it the same as the brand new 2005 Lexus.

Right now, we have some commissioners who are so excited about being in the "in-group" and getting called to the Courthouse for special one-on-one meetings that they have forgotten that there are people out there on a fixed income, people who have no jobs, people who have no insurance, people working for minimum wage, people who sometimes must choose between buying medicine or food, people who don't live in the "average" $100,000 house that Commissioner Briggs talks about, people who don't have the "average" Hamblen County income of $24,000 per year, people who rarely say anything because they learned long ago that people in government don't really listen.

By the way, when you hear that there is no tax increase in the proposed budgets, remember that the property tax dollars that you pay to the county come from multiplying TWO figures: "your assessment" x "tax rate." Check your new property tax assessment and you may find that you are already going to be paying more property tax dollars to the county next year (even without a rate increase) simply because your assessment has gone up so much.

It is a sad situation when you have a commissioner state in an open meeting that our records and accounting are so bad that it really doesn't matter what kind of budget we pass. Just pass something and be done with it.
It is unfortunate that commissioners who took all budgets "under advisement," now are not willing to look for savings.

I used to hear several commissioners say that the county budget, like a family budget, should depend on our revenue. We shouldn't spend more than we take in. Those commissioners are now waffling and saying revenues don't really matter after all. We have this much spending we want to do, and we'll do that spending even if we don't have enough revenue. We'll just pull from our fund balance (savings).

Flip-flop?

What happens next year when you need this money again to cover your expenses? We've been told that our growth has flat-lined. With only so much space in Hamblen County, growth eventually has to stabilize. That's common sense. Is it time to stabilize and review our spending as well? Is it time to collect all revenues that are due the county--with regular delinquent tax sales, with communication between the planning commission and the business tax office so that business licenses are purchased and taxes are collected on new construction, with service of warrants, etc.

There are solutions. Instead of adding more taxes, revenues can be increased by collecting what is due. Treat all employees the same. Spread the cuts around to all departments. And remember that these so-called "cuts" are not really cuts at all. If we "cut" a county department or a school budget or the garbage budget, all that means is that they don't get all the funding they have requested on their wish-list.

Yes, keep spending within revenues. And if some commissioners are worried about building up a fund balance, don't lose any sleep over that. Commissioner Tom Lowe offered the perfect solution to that "problem," use any surplus to pay down the county's roughly $40M debt. Paying down debt is not a glamorous idea, but a common sense idea is rarely a showy thing.

The county has a pile of debt, and some people don't want to even think of trying to reduce it. It seems insurmountable. But you start even the longest journey with a single step. Paying down our debt is the ultimate win-win proposition. When the county pays down its debt, it's like you paying off your car. You still have your same income but now you don't have to spend money on the car payment, now you can spend it on house improvements or a vacation or education expenses.

The same thing would happen if the county paid down its debt. Revenue would still come in. But by cutting debt expenses, more money would be available for schools, law enforcement, public health and safety. Common sense.

We could even set aside and build a reserve fund for future capital expenses. Like a family might start saving now to be able to pay cash for a car 3 years from now. The government could save and try to handle big ticket items on a "pay-as-you-go" plan instead of suddenly raising taxes to pay for a bond issue.

Do I expect this to happen? Not now. Right now we don't even have the courage as a commission to insist on answers to audit questions about where last year's dollars went. Right now, some of the six new commissioners have forgotten how they were handed an unbalanced budget right after taking office--now some of these commissioners are going down that same path. Right now, some commissioners have forgotten that in 2002 $923,000 was pulled out of fund balance and that the next year (2003) the county general fund was "broke"--the only thing that kept us from being declared bankrupt was that several miscellaneous funds were dumped into the general fund.

Right now, too many commissioners have forgotten our recent financial history and have forgotten about accountability.

My only hope is that we don't wait until we have broken the general fund again before we wake up and smell the coffee.