A
couple of years ago, this town had a Budget Advisory Board elected by
the people. Being elected, these individuals were completed separate
from the Town Council and could provide the Town Council with an
objective review of the budget. However, this Budget Advisory Board,
for its last two years, did not support the Town Council’s
Municipal Budget. As
a result of the Budget Advisory Board NOT recommending approval of
the Municipal Budget they were replace with the Finance Committee.
This
Finance Committee was not elected by the people but appointed by the
Town Council thus eliminating any objective review of the budget.
In order to ensure the Finance Committee always supported the Town
Council’s Municipal Budget the Council loaded the seven members
with five (5) previous councilors.
This
has worked out well for the Town Council but has hurt taxpayers
because there is no one to look out for them. There
is no separation between the Town Council and the budget process
because the majority of the Finance Committee is former councilors.
In
this year’s budget, the Finance Committee recommended a total of
$65,650.00 tax dollars be spent on Professional Services.
This is in addition to Professional Development. The Town Engineer
alone will receive $53,600.00 tax dollars in Professional Services.
Look below for their recommended cuts:
INSURANCE
- $25,000.00
ASSESSING
- $22,000.00
FINANCE
- $14,590.00
TAX
COLLECTOR - $16,200.00
TOWN
CLERK – $9,489.00
PARKS
- $600.00
POLICE
DEPARTMENT - $0.00
The
Police Department has a $1,300.00 plus budget. That’s
right over $1.3 MILLION of our tax dollars and the Finance Committee
could find no areas to cut.
I do not need
to continue to repeat some of the areas I found with just a quick
glance. These former councilors have dedicated their time on the
council protecting Chief Brooks budget for numerous years and now
they continue to do it.
It
is imperative for this community's
survival
that
there be a group of individuals, completely separate from the Town
Council to ensure there is a check and balance system in place to
protect the taxpayers.
This is NOT
present at this time.
The
Town Council needs to take action to reinstate the
Budget Advisory
Board ELECTED by the people.
Larry
Fillmore
Editors Note: I believe if you place all the actual costs of the Police Dept. into the Police department budget you would find our PD costs us well over 2 million dollars.
Editors Note: I believe if you place all the actual costs of the Police Dept. into the Police department budget you would find our PD costs us well over 2 million dollars.
The dollar amount allotted for Professional Service hours should be based on the amount of credit hours that the state requires and not based on extravagant and/or out of state workshops.
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