Who’s watching the budgets? I’m talking about the city and county budgets. And I’ll tell you, hardly anybody. Sure there are some pet-duck projects a few single-issue-concerned-citizens track like coonhounds through the board and committee meetings and hearings and votes. But this is to make sure the politicians put money where they want it to go – not necessarily where it gives best value.
And on a grander scale, hardly anybody’s worried about the big picture. Who cares about what’s inside the city and county budgets that have just been passed? We all should care. It’s our money and we should want it to be spent where it will be most cost effective.
I know a lot of Baldwin County folks who got real serious about their property insurance when the cost doubled or tripled or worse. And lots of drivers are really hacked about the bouncing gasoline prices – six changes a day, with up-ticks bigger and faster than drops.
In response to higher costs for a lot of things and uncertainty over future prices, most of us are trying to get as much value for our dollar as we can. We try to be smart shoppers. But are we holding our local political leaders to the same standard? Are our tax dollars being used wisely? Are the services we buy from our cities and county the best value, or just the result of an easy-to-make deal? Few ask and hardly anyone demands that our governments be smart shoppers too.
The cost of local government and the services they provide are things that we can get some control over. This is unlike gasoline prices, which are basically set by the world market, or homeowners’ insurance rates, regulated by the state. Control is in hands of the citizens. But only if they are concerned, pay attention to issues and push back when there is a lapse in good fiscal judgment and when cost effective decisions aren’t being made.
One service both Daphne and Fairhope provide is residential natural gas. The commodity market price of natural gas went from just under $6 per million BTUs (the standard measure) in January of 2005 to just over $16 per, in December. Users’ bills went up, way up. Today, comparable prices are around $5, but what are gas customers of places like Daphne and Fairhope paying – and more important what will they be paying this winter?
I don’t know and I suspect that unless you’re in just the right part of the city government you don’t either. With lower current prices, does anybody know what the contracted price for future gas purchases is for your city? I don’t and I bet you don’t either – unless you’re the guy who signed the future delivery contract. What I fear is there are contracts in place with prices well above, maybe obscenely above, the going rate, and nobody in the city governments is worried because the consumer has to pay whatever the price is. No need to hunt new suppliers or fight for better deals – because hardly anybody out there knows or cares about these “details.”
How many retirees got a cost of living increases from their pension plan (not social security) every other year up through 2005 and another one in 2006 (these last two increases totaling 11 percent, while inflation was in the 2-3 percent range)? Virtually none from the private sector, I’ll bet.
But the Daphne city council just approved for their retirees everything I described. Forgotten are the current employees who have had less frequent raises and most recently actually took a cut because they have to pay a bigger share of their insurance costs. These are policies that de-motivate, demoralize and discourage retention. Worse, it sets the stage, on a tiny scale, for the same problem killing other cities – a tidal wave of growing retiree costs that swamp future budgets and require higher taxes or reduced services. But who noticed? I and a few others were in the audience. None of us said a word.
Daphne’s sister city, Fairhope, keeps reporting they are in great financial shape. I went to Mayor Kant’s “State of the City” luncheon and his pitch on the city’s fiscal condition was so rosy it was red. Unfortunately it turned out that the budget was also – red.
Just discovered in mid-September: the pier repairs, some of which date back to Hurricane Ivan, are going to bust the budget – a real surprise and something not apparent from the monthly public reports of the city’s financial state. But then these reports are about as transparent as a brick and equally useful in understanding the fiscal situation. There is no insight provided into how revenue and expense projections relate – just a year-to-year comparison of budget items. However, no one is aroused by this and things just chug along.
One thing that needs resolution now, but seems to be like an insane relative locked away upstairs (everybody knows, but it is never spoken of), is a city sales tax. The current use of patchwork, seemingly unplanned borrowing as a substitute for having adequate revenues is costly and irresponsible. A sales tax, maybe even a lodging tax, is a good way to create an additional source of revenue that places a minimal burden on city residents and businesses. If the tax is too hot politically, a citizen’s committee needs to take the initiative and fight to have the council enact sales and similar taxes – push them to take some fiscally prudent action to solve the revenue shortfall.
Get excited, get involved. Get out and be sure your local politicians are as concerned as you are about getting the most cost effective government possible.
Contact Pete Gleszer at jubilee@lagniappemobile.com.
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