- Enjoying the art in our midst (4/16/24)
- Lives touched across thousands of miles (4/9/24)
- Funerals and other happy times (4/2/24)
- Blizzards, tornadoes and Easter traditions (3/26/24)
- From making our bed to making democracy work (3/19/24)
- Biden's speech, a missed opportunity and theater triumph (3/12/24)
- From Plain Jane to high tech: Nostalgia vs. modern conveniences in automobiles (3/5/24)
Opinion
Bite the other side of the apple
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Last week the McCook City Manager presented next year's budget to the Council and gave them the heads up that revenues might be a little short. His solution was to increase the property tax levy by 3 cents or so. Whoa that is biting off the wrong side of the apple. A better solution, the only tenable one, is to reduce expenses by whatever the city officers' project to be the shortfall. It is up to the City Council members. All they have to do is direct the City Manager to live within the projected revenue. That is his job after all. He, in turn, will pass down to the different divisions the maximum amount for their budget for the next year. All done, all set and press on with the City's business.
Not so easy will be the Council Member's response. Well, this old guy has been through the Kabuki Theatre that is budget time as an actual participant and time has lent perspective. The call goes out and the manager of each division of the city dusts off last year's budget and adds in a new wish list. All those requests are amalgamated into a total city budget, 258 pages this year, by the City Clerk. Oops, too much money requested so hearings are held and each manager comes forth to defend his/her requests. It is all presented in detail to the council members who mostly get overwhelmed with too much information. Neither Council nor the public is encouraged to get into the detail of budget items as that would be micromanaging. Not their job but it is the job of the hired City Manager.
I note that city employees are to be given a 2 percent raise across the board. Now if that is to counter inflation of the U.S. dollar which has had almost zero inflation this past year the raise makes no sense. No doubt some city employees deserve increases in salary but this old manager always has been of the opinion that increases should be handed out on an incentive basis. If the wage increase is justified as countering cost of living then each employee should get the same dollar increase as each of us buys groceries at the same price instead of a percentage of our salary where the higher end employees get more than the others. I suspect they don't eat more.
Gazette reporter Bruce Baker noted in his piece on the budget Aug. 17 that police were to be paid in accordance with their union contract. Sitting on the Council I was graveled to learn that the police union had a scheme to have members nearing retirement to be assigned lots of overtime to get their pay way above average to bump up their retirement checks. Again, I am in favor of rewarding excellent performance rather than rewarding each the lazy and the industrious the same. Mike Hendricks addressed the union championing of the less industrious over the better employees, he spoke of teachers, in his column a couple weeks ago. Good article Mike.
Not much we the public can do about the ever-increasing budget other than get ahold of your council member and express your opinion. They do listen if enough of the voters express their opinion and they do have the ability to keep from increasing the levy. And the promise to cut back on the levy when the new City Offices bond is paid off in a couple years! I have a share of the Republican River Bridge that I'm willing to sell if you believe that one!
What are they thinking raising property taxes anyway? The Gazette has been publishing thinking by City Officials that it is time to annex a few of the communities that surround just outside city limits. Will raising property taxes make those property owners looking to be annexed more eager to join the city? They already pay the city sales tax and have no vote in that matter. I'd bet that none are eager to add another 33 cents to their property tax levy either.
Grannie Annie and I had visitors from Merced, California this past week. Andy and Claudia stopped overnight on their way to tour the east coast. First off they were more than impressed that their overnight stay in Karrer Park with their fifth wheel RV was free, electricity included. Then we gave them a driving tour showing off our parks and street after street of well-kept homes. Claudia a newly retired teacher spied the jewel of Korell's really special Frank Lloyd Wright designed home, the only one in Nebraska.
Andy wondered about jobs and industry so we touted agriculture, the railroad, Parker's hose plant and Valmont the center pivot manufacturer. You see Merced is in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley and in the midst of a severe drought. That country is semi-desert but literally blooms when irrigation water is present. Water is currently being severely restricted even to the extent that new homes have to be landscaped only with desert plants, lawns not allowed, rocks only. Of course here in southwestern Nebraska we have had an exceptionally wet year and timely rains have made everything green yet this late into August. Andy's comment was that driving through on the highway a person has no idea what this community has to offer.
We like it here. It is home. Please then don't tax us out of our comfort zone.
That is the way we saw it.