Ok, so the quote of the night from last nights council meeting was "So after everything happening out at JB Wells we started thinking." To protect the guilty I'm going to leave the names out. But honestly I had to do everything I could to keep from rolling out of my chair. My councilman shot me the "please quit laughing before I start laughing too" look. I was just grateful the speaker was facing away from me and couldn't see me.
So I'm assuming we're finally starting to think about JB Wells and how we operate it. That the hundreds of thousands of dollars we've pissed away weren't enough to get the attention of those in our city offices, it took police and firing of individuals to finally get people thinking.
I hope in the mean time all the other department heads are 'thinking' too. That they realize that this is no longer an open checkbook town with a bottomless pit of being able to get anything they want. I know that some departments have struggled over the years more than others, but even those have gotten 'luxuries' compared to our surrounding cities.
We (our city) has to get back to basics! If we don't need it right now we can't afford it. And as I tell my teenagers, there are HUGE differences between what we want and what we need. I would love to have a water system pumping 10x the water we have with great water pressure throughout town and lots to spare, with roads paved of gold and no potholes or dips that rip out the underside of my car, with roads like Ft. Wahl passable, with stoplights in sync, and great parks with walking trails, and St. George street finished, and our canoe trail finished, and and and and and....but some of these things are not needed right now (though some of them are).
Earlier this year, our city council sat down for weeks on end, working with the interim city manager and all of the department heads coming up with a budget of things that were necessary to run our town for this year. Necessary being the key word. Since that time we've added about $500,000 (that's right a half a MILLION dollars in expenditures) to that budget, with a 6 - 15 million project additional in that. All this with a budget that was already 1.5 million in the hole. That alone was a tough amount to swallow.
So why are we continuing to spend? Why are we adding non-budgeted items every meeting to our burden? The item that was in question last night was honestly a partially budgeted item. The city if finally purchasing some software that will track payments for the RVs, our city cemetery, and other elements of our city that have been run out of a shoe box in the past. Of the $31,000 that they approved, $25,000 was budgeted. It was the additional modules to run the RV slots and cemetery an a couple of other $$$ management pieces that make up the $6,000 not budgeted. And honestly we've needed something there, but why didn't we budget for this 2 years ago, hell 5 years ago when we put in JB Wells?
I'm hoping that our city listens to what was said and follows through, and honestly 'begins to think' about how we're operating all aspects of our city right now.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Showing posts with label Budgets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Budgets. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Property Taxes
Ok, tomorrow (Tuesday night at 530) we have a public hearing on raising the property taxes in Gonzales. There will be a second hearing at the regularly scheduled council meeting September 6th.
Now I want to make this clear, I don't want to misrepresent the situation at hand. At the last council meeting Councilman Logan made the motion to keep the rate of our taxes the same as they were last year. Per state law though this is actually an increase because of the increase in property values, and as such they must have these public hearings and vote on it as an increase in our tax rates. It is not because they have increased the percentage of taxation on the value of our homes.
In order to keep the amount of taxation the same, the council must (and still could) vote to have the effective tax rate put in place where the percentage would go down, but our individual taxes would be about the same.
So here we go, and I actually have 2 trains of thought here, one of them probably not as popular as the other one.
First to keep the tax rate the same will increase taxes by $21,000 for the city of Gonzales. To quote our Interim City Manager, "This won't even buy a new vehicle for the city". Now he was trying to say how little this was, and I'm going to tell you for all it's worth it's not even enough to purchase a new vehicle, so way are we wasting our time and money going through all this effort?
Additionally, and more importantly, if we wanted $21,000 all we would of had to do is cancel any one of the council meetings over the last 6 months. In that time they have added to our already 1.5 million dollar deficit at the rate of about $100,000 a meeting. We've added to the airport (don't you use it?), we've paid study after study after study and consultant after consultant that in my personal opinion could have waited till we till we have recuperated from the debacle of our previous management. Even on tomorrows agenda there are what appear to be unbudgeted items.
I always thought that's what we had a budget process for, you budget, you work the budget, and unless it's an EMERGENCY then you work towards next years budget to get the new stuff added. I haven't seen anything that was an EMERGENCY at any of the meetings I've attended (which is a vast majority of them). Why bother putting together a budget if we're not going to follow it?
Additionally I keep hearing about all this oil money, and yet our income actual vs budget was down by 3% last time I looked, meaning we're 3% shy of what we were anticipating receiving in funds for the city this year for this time period. In addition to that we were over budget in spending, in no small part to JB Wells excessive over budget spending YTD. So we're not getting as much as we hoped, and we're spending more than we said we would. Surprise!
So to be very clear, I'm in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM in favor of the proposed tax rate the way it is laid out right now.
Now comes the part I'm sure a few more will not agree with. I'm not all together opposed to a tax increase. I don't think economically it's really the time, but here's what I told one of our council members.
If the council would come up with a real plan for road and infrastructure improvements, and say we have a 5 year plan, I would be ok with a real tax increase as long as they would decrease the taxes at the end of that 5 years.
I've seen it done in San Antonio, and it can work! BUT and I mean BUT that has to be a set in stone, the money from that increase goes to specific projects that we the people have approved, and at the end of the time period the increase has got to drop back down and the city not count on any of that money in the future. Way to often a council will come up with any excuse to keep the taxes up, but that can not happen! This can not become another "vote for the lottery to pay for our schools" slogan either. This has to be very specific what these monies would be raised for and when they were the taxes would go away.
But if those conditions would be met and our infrastructure was the target of the needed money I would be in support.
But I promise you that the $20,000 that our council is dealing with is a waste of the public hearings and nothing more than a game someone is playing. Let your councilman know that you expect him to vote for the "effective rate" in 2 weeks. That there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE to vote for the rate as it's proposed right now. How about make a trip to one of the 2 city council meetings and speak up for yourself? Tomorrow at 5:30 or next Tuesday at 6.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Now I want to make this clear, I don't want to misrepresent the situation at hand. At the last council meeting Councilman Logan made the motion to keep the rate of our taxes the same as they were last year. Per state law though this is actually an increase because of the increase in property values, and as such they must have these public hearings and vote on it as an increase in our tax rates. It is not because they have increased the percentage of taxation on the value of our homes.
In order to keep the amount of taxation the same, the council must (and still could) vote to have the effective tax rate put in place where the percentage would go down, but our individual taxes would be about the same.
So here we go, and I actually have 2 trains of thought here, one of them probably not as popular as the other one.
First to keep the tax rate the same will increase taxes by $21,000 for the city of Gonzales. To quote our Interim City Manager, "This won't even buy a new vehicle for the city". Now he was trying to say how little this was, and I'm going to tell you for all it's worth it's not even enough to purchase a new vehicle, so way are we wasting our time and money going through all this effort?
Additionally, and more importantly, if we wanted $21,000 all we would of had to do is cancel any one of the council meetings over the last 6 months. In that time they have added to our already 1.5 million dollar deficit at the rate of about $100,000 a meeting. We've added to the airport (don't you use it?), we've paid study after study after study and consultant after consultant that in my personal opinion could have waited till we till we have recuperated from the debacle of our previous management. Even on tomorrows agenda there are what appear to be unbudgeted items.
I always thought that's what we had a budget process for, you budget, you work the budget, and unless it's an EMERGENCY then you work towards next years budget to get the new stuff added. I haven't seen anything that was an EMERGENCY at any of the meetings I've attended (which is a vast majority of them). Why bother putting together a budget if we're not going to follow it?
Additionally I keep hearing about all this oil money, and yet our income actual vs budget was down by 3% last time I looked, meaning we're 3% shy of what we were anticipating receiving in funds for the city this year for this time period. In addition to that we were over budget in spending, in no small part to JB Wells excessive over budget spending YTD. So we're not getting as much as we hoped, and we're spending more than we said we would. Surprise!
So to be very clear, I'm in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM in favor of the proposed tax rate the way it is laid out right now.
Now comes the part I'm sure a few more will not agree with. I'm not all together opposed to a tax increase. I don't think economically it's really the time, but here's what I told one of our council members.
If the council would come up with a real plan for road and infrastructure improvements, and say we have a 5 year plan, I would be ok with a real tax increase as long as they would decrease the taxes at the end of that 5 years.
I've seen it done in San Antonio, and it can work! BUT and I mean BUT that has to be a set in stone, the money from that increase goes to specific projects that we the people have approved, and at the end of the time period the increase has got to drop back down and the city not count on any of that money in the future. Way to often a council will come up with any excuse to keep the taxes up, but that can not happen! This can not become another "vote for the lottery to pay for our schools" slogan either. This has to be very specific what these monies would be raised for and when they were the taxes would go away.
But if those conditions would be met and our infrastructure was the target of the needed money I would be in support.
But I promise you that the $20,000 that our council is dealing with is a waste of the public hearings and nothing more than a game someone is playing. Let your councilman know that you expect him to vote for the "effective rate" in 2 weeks. That there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE to vote for the rate as it's proposed right now. How about make a trip to one of the 2 city council meetings and speak up for yourself? Tomorrow at 5:30 or next Tuesday at 6.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
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