Wonderful and surprising news from the basement of the Hamblen County Courthouse!
In a press release today, County Mayor David Purkey states that he is going to make sure that the proposed Hamblen County budget for 2009-2010 is available for taxpayers to view on the Hamblen County website!
In the press release, Purkey apologizes for earlier remarks that posting the proposed budget and changes to the budget would "confuse" taxpayers. Purkey now admits that the taxpayers of Hamblen County are smart enough to understand budgets and changes that are made to budgets.
By way of explanation, Purkey states that Hamblen County taxpayers have personal budgets and have had to make often painful changes to their personal budgets during these exceptionally difficult economic times. He adds that these same taxpayers who are struggling with personal budgets should definitely be able to see the county's proposed budget and the spending plan that they will be asked/ordered to pay for!
In another gracious comment, Purkey admitted that he was wrong when he said at a public meeting on March 9 that one of the reasons he didn't want to put the budget online was because he didn't want "someone in a law office somewhere" looking at the budget. Thank you, David.
In a sidenote, Purkey adds that he is going to have his administrative assistant, Amber Shelton, assist with seeing that the proposed budget is posted on the website just as soon as it is available. David just remembered that several months ago --when the commission switched from folders to binders-- Amber pointed out that as a result of the switch she would have an extra FIVE hours every month to help the Mayor!
David has asked Amber to use the extra FIVE hours for May and the extra FIVE hours for June to help the Mayor post the proposed budget and updates on the county's website.
During the other ten months of the year, Amber will use that extra FIVE hours each month to keep the Mayor's office climate-controlled just in case he drops in.
[APRIL 3 UPDATE: The above entry was posted on April 1 and, unfortunately for the taxpayers of Hamblen County, was just an April 1 prank. See my April 3 post for more information]
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