At the Executive Committee meeting on May 22, members were presented with a handout entitled "Ranking of Deficit Reduction Options Budget 2009". Without elaborate discussion or debate, we were instructed to rank our personal choices among 11 options, in order of preference, to give the Finance Department direction in deciding how to balance the budget. The options were:
____ Maximize Operation Efficiencies
____ Property Tax Exemptions
____ Increase and/or New Fees and Charges for Services
____ Delay Maintenance or Capital Projects
____ Borrowing
____ Sell Assets
____ New Taxes
____ Shift Costs to Others
____ Use of Fund Balance
____ Staff Lay-Offs
____ Reduction or Elimination of Programs/Services
Before I disclose how I ranked the choices (and how the Executive Committee average vote tallied), I'd like you to make your choices. Let's see how close we are to agreement.
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A few problems with this list. Whoever made it up should have saved their energy and just wrote down 3 options: increase taxes, and/or reduce services! Every single item falls into one of those 3 options. Raising fees are just raising taxes. A tax, is a tax, is a tax! Period! Borrowing is a tax, for now AND the future. Same with shifting costs. Everything else can fall into reducing services. A 4 day workweek would maximise efficiencies. Selling assets does all the same thing. Of course with a 23 member board and a committee system, no committee chair has EVER voted to even reduce anything let alone elimnate something. Departments just grow and grow.
Efficiency through reductions of everything is the only answer. Any other remedy of this problem is going to be revolting to the vast majority of not only residents, but also all those unrepresented non residents who actually pay the bill here. They have a growing voice that echoes what this country fought a revolution for: "taxation without representation"
In the wake of the now infamous referendum, this board best tread carefully!
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