Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Budget Struggles

It has been interesting to see the County Council and County Commissioners struggle to get the budget beast under control. In my opinion, they are doing many of the things that need to be done, looking for costs to cut, and beginning to require that spending be justified. Link: Minutes of May 18 joint meeting of Hamilton County Council & County Commissioners.

That's all well and good, but Libertarian candidates for County offices had been saying that these bodies should be doing this when they ran in 2002. How much better off in terms of fiscal health would our County be if some of them were elected then, and the belt tightening had begun when tax receipts were up? A great deal better.

While I see provisions to reduce overtime, and even consideration to reduce the work week, I did not see any evidence that staff sizes have been reduced. Especially as the County has seen a curtailment in growth, it cannot be possible that as many regulators and inspectors are needed now as when growth was astronomical. More staff cutting can, and should, be done.

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