The county's tough choices
Last week's busy news cycle -- the Virginia Tech mass murder, the Alberto Gonzales hearing, and the huge shark caught near Navarre Beach -- overshadowed another major local news story.
In a meeting with the Northwest Florida Daily News editorial board last week, Okaloosa County officials said they expect to trim millions of dollars from the county's budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This is a result of anticipated changes the state Legislature is considering that will lower property taxes.
The anticipated lower taxes come as great news to homeowners, and especially business owners who have seen their property taxes head through the roof in recent years.
But it will also mean some tough choices for Okaloosa and other Emerald Coast counties. What do you cut? Proposed construction projects such as the courthouse annex or the jail expansion? Or, do you cut the budget of other constitutional offices such as the sheriff's department or EMS? Or, do you lay off personnel?
Okaloosa County Manager Jim Curry and Commissioner Bill Roberts said those options and others will be on the table as the county develops its budget for the upcoming year.
I'm an advocate of tightening government's budget at ALL levels -- county, state and federal. Simply put, government spends too much. But I don't envy the task that will soon confront county officials. If anyone has some advice for them, share it.
posted by Patrick Rice @ 7:10 AM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
Given that homeownwers and businesses will have more money, I suggest that we lower the quality of life and culture venues: (1.) Close all libraries/museums/beach facilities in the County/ Cities/Towns and citizens can then buy their books at Books A' Million or on-line, and watch cable vision instead of visiting museums and beaches; (2.) Close all parks and recreation facilities and then citizens can join a YMCA or for-profit health club, and drive themselves and/or their children to Alabama to play football, baseball, soccer, and softball, or maintain the parks and beaches themselves; (3.) slash the County Growth Management Department and City Planning Departments because there will be no need to for rezoning from agricultural to residential or business. We shall not need more housing and businesses when the people and businesses quit coming and begin to move; (4.) Refuse to allow any state senator or legislator use state funding to build a seldom used facility, such as the $1.3M Burl Marler Walkway, but must be maintained by the county, city, or school board; and finally, (5.) Tell the Department of Defense change its BRAC decision and relocate military activity to another state.
BOTTOMLINE: Public safety, healthcare and education are paramount, but the absence of quality of life will not attract people and industry.
Too many people have come to rely on the government for too much. We can no longer afford to do this. Too many programs are not essential services the government should be paying for, and we need to end them now. The county Health Department should have its budget cut by at least 25%. People need to accept responsibility for themselves and their families. The people receiving the handouts may consider the programs vital, but they’re not vital for the county as a whole and should be eliminated.
Police and fire fighting are examples of programs the government should provide and they should be fully funded. We should ask a question about a program when deciding its fate. Is this program providing something that most people provide for themselves? If the answers is yes, that program should be eliminated and the people getting the handout should do what most others are doing and accept responsibility for themselves.
Just because one person shirks their responsibility doesn’t mean that the other taxpayers are obligated to accept that responsibility. If a person doesn’t provide child support it isn’t anybody else’s responsibility to help the mother, she has to live with the consequences of her actions.
There are very few things the government should be doing, and income redistribution isn’t one of them. Schools are the government’s responsibility school lunches are not. Health care is not the government’s responsibility and we shouldn’t be spending thousands of dollars providing it to people. People need to take responsibility for themselves and quit expecting handouts.
i think it's great that they are crying about money.
maybe they can see what everybody else has been going through lately. the cost of energy, taxes,insurance, etc. has been going up for people who unlike the .gov have to earn their money.
my wages haven't went up nowhere near as much as the cost of living, so i made cuts where i needed to.
the .gov has been raking in more money every year, and spending it like sailors on leave, rather than saving it.
they need to get rid of all the extra administrators at all levels, cut commissioners salaries,(nice to get paid so much for a part time job bs'ing the public),and quit paying for endless studies of the same things over and over.
Lowering taxes is a fairy tale. The only thing that will change will be how taxes are collected. Less will be collected at the local level and more at the state leves.
Just try to get the money back to the local level that gave the tax money in the first place. Now the state will decide who gets the money to do what job.
Is the state better qualified to distribute tax money than the local elected officieal? I doubt it.
Now as to what to cut. We aleady are not getting needed local services such as flood control.
We could save a lot of money by getting rid of the current incompetent Director of Public Works and hiring someone qualified to do the job. For far less than her salary of $105,000 we should find many qualified people.
A qualified Director would know not to send 4 people to accomplish the job that one person can accomplish.
I think that currently far too much county money is being spent of sports facilities and parks. Too little is spent on needed infrastructure.
However, my final thought is for all of you good folks to contact your state Senator and Representative and tell them you do not want the state controlling your local money.
Infrastructure needs are critical to address. They are the skeleton and nervous system of a community. If they deteriorate, everything else will suffer.
Bush bashers have derided his suggestion that we rely more on faith-based initiatives to address our social problems. No matter how many hereto for unknown Gospels are discovered, the admonition of Christianity has always been more on the works and less on the bricks and sticks. I'm not a Hillary Clinton advocate of the whole village raising the child, but I believe the government is too involved in social welfare roles.
Most states have local representatives participating in their domain's Association of Counties. Our local county reps need to bond with those throughout Florida to make certain that the practice of unfunded mandates is halted. If the State requires local governments to meet mandated requirements, then it needs to fund them.
'tis amazing how many people rant and rave over their tax burden in the State of Florida. According to a tax burden table derived from the U.S. Commerce Dep't's Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) -- the government agency that publishes the nation's most authoritative statement of taxation and income (National Income and Product Accounts- NIPA), Florida is ranked as the 38th lowest tax burden at the state and local taxation level. You can review the data at: http://www.retirementliving.com/RLtaxburdens.html. By the way, The Okaloosa County Economic Development Council touts high tech industry for better paying jobs and a sound economy. Well, check out the tax base in the current centers of high tech industry relative to that of Florida. Given all the complaints on this blog about po' little me and my high taxes, I conclude that some people find fault even with things that benefit them. Personally, I am a retired federal civil servant with one modestly priced home, and state and local taxation does not impact me. Additionally, quit attacking city and county elected leadership and staff. I know many and they work very hard to care for the needs of all. Unfortunately, few turn up at their public forums to provide needed input unless they are a NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) advocate. Given that a blog does not track our demographics, it would be interesting to know how many posts are related to real estate investments made and now causing pain. Appearances are very often deceiving.
Let’s outsource the new county courthouse. The county will provide the specifications and accept bids. The winner will design, build, own and maintain the building. The county would lease the building for the long-term, say 20 – 30 years. This way it’ll likely cost less than the county doing it and it can be paid for over time. The county could also have an option to renew the lease for up to 50 years, but would be required to lease it for a minimum of 20 years to make it feasible for the developer to build it.
The developer may also be able to purchase adjacent land and develop it to take advantage of the courthouse and the people it brings in. For instance an office building can be leased to a law firm or several restaurants can set up shop there.
The military privatized some base housing and it’s been a win-win situation for the military and the developer, we should be able to do the same here.
There is a lot of fat that can be trimmed from County government. I track the budget process and every year there are budget items that do not add value to our quality of life. A good example of waste is the Marler Park debacle. Millions spent on a facility that is hardly used with broken facilities and they even decreased boat access due to less trailer parking. Another example was a digital sign for thousands of dollars; what value does this add?
I don't agree with closing public recreation facilities- what practicality is driving kids to Alabama to play softball? Recreation areas do add a quality of life to our area. No public beaches? No parks? This would be a dismal place indeed.
Hopefully with less money to spend the county and city budgets will be reviewed more thoughtfully to make themselves more efficient.
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