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Resident questions city budget measures

To the Editor,

When I read the city proposed a $20 million budget for next year, I wrote a hellfire-and-brimstone letter, because we are going from a $15.7 million budget the mayor and council had to work with his first year in office to over a 20 percent increase for the administration’s second year.

Then I called my councilman. He was honest and straightforward, as usual, and explained the $20 million had a $3 million float in it (the $15.7 had a $1.4 million float). A float is a fund to absorb bills before sufficient taxes have been collected to pay them.

He also explained they had researched giving the garbage men a bonus, but were prevented by law giving government workers bonuses. However, the garbage men are temporary employees, so that should exempt them from state law. He was going to bring that up at the budget meeting held recently. When I asked about the seven new police this mayor hired this year, he said two were already in the pipeline. I also conveyed to him the phoniness of eliminating the B&O for wholesale business when it amounted to a paltry $21,000 as opposed to the $1.8 million collected.

Reading the city manager’s account of the subsequent city budget meeting indicated nothing about my concerns, so here they are.

Saying you are going to include a 5 percent raise for city employees, but only discuss a raise for the garbage men leads me to believe that is as phony as eliminating $21,000 of the B&O out of the $1.8 million. Where there is a will, there is a way and it is time the city find the way for the nine who work the back of the garbage trucks!

Hiring seven new policemen in one year will only make the police retirement liability worse. If were are $13 million behind in mandated retirement contributions, how will adding seven new members to the rolls help matters? Yes, it is nice to have more police, especially if they were as dedicated as the officer who was spotlighted on television a few months ago. But being fiscally responsible is not about what we want, or at times need, as much as what we can afford. Being $13 million in arrears for the police department means we are mortgaging our future to pay for current policing services.

Doubling the float to $3 million, essentially a slush fund, makes it extremely tempting for this administration to find ways to use it. Government abhors a vacuum, and will always seek ways to fill it! It won’t be long before the city will need to raise the sales tax to cover their spending.

Any fool can spend, and it does not take a genius to tax.

Blaise Hogan

Weirton

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