Budget Message Says It All

Ashworth Budget Memo 1011
All you have to do is read between the lines to see that the Supervisor's budget released Friday amounts to giving the majority what they demand while explaining to the public the mess their four votes is creating now and in the future.

The budget choices are clearly not what the Supervisor would have done if she had the majority of the board, but this board has beat her down over the past two years to the point that she decided enough and would not seek re-election. Now she has handed them a parting gift, a budget with all the bad choices they demanded, staffing levels, use of Highway funds to pay for their spending in the General Fund, and of course the consequences to taxpayers, no money to build the highway garage renovations or buy even a single police car which has not seen a purchase in 4 years.

Yes, the majority would have simply changed everything she wanted to do, so she handed them their dinner, but carefully spelled out the desert they would have to eat as a result. Now there is no more money to borrow from highway to pay for general fund expenses, no money to pay for the big overtime payments approved a year ago to do the work of the fired youth director, not even money for raises in contracts yet to be negotiated.

And yes, there remains a deficit, despite Lou Desso's denials, one which is not erased and now a budget that will require tax hikes in 2013 in both highway and general fund thanks to their reckless taking from highway to make themselves look good without paying for the spending with new taxes or cuts to offset the revenue gap between expenditures and revenues.

Every dog has his day and Peter has borrowed from Paul to the point where Paul has nothing left to give. It's a budget without badly needed progress for the town and one only the majority of Spain and Desso could support.