From the head of the Citizens Budget Watchdog Committee

Guest post by Greg Cebula, Chairman of the Citizens Budget Watchdog Committee.  The following is his statement to the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors from yesterday - March 11, 2008.

Good evening Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board, and Citizens of Spotsylvania County. My name is Greg Cebula and I live in Berkeley District.

I come before you as chairman of a newly formed Citizens Committee. We are formed of the same members as your previously appointed CBAC membership.
We unanimously decided to continue to survey the County government’s budget process. In recognition of our independent status we are now the “Citizens Budget Watchdog Committee” and have filled the open position left when you dissolved us.

Our goal is to provide useful budget recommendations to the BOS for your consideration in resolving both the current short-term budget crisis and the longer-term budget process.

Our essential thrust tonight, is to urge you to be more aware of the need to communicate with taxpaying citizens regarding the County’s current fiscal plans and longer-term fiscal condition.

Since the April 1st public hearing is to solicit citizen comments about the reasonableness of proposed budgetary expenditures, as well as the advertised tax rate, we have a few suggestions to improve the process for citizen commentary. At past annual Budget Hearings a booklet was provided to citizens at the hearing.  We recommend this information be available prior to the hearing and that in this year’s booklet you include:

1. A six-year history of the real estate tax rates levied.
2. The median assessed valuation of single-family residential property.
3. The average tax burden for each year. 

This information will allow citizens to determine the reasonableness of trends in tax burdens and it should also be available online at least one week prior to the hearing. 

Furthermore, there is a need to clearly disclose the amount of projected undesignated revenues. Since this is the revenue figure used by the County Administrator for his projection of revenues available for the “local transfer” to the School Division, a note should be prominently displayed in the booklet that states:

It is the current budgetary practice of the BOS to allow 67% percent of the undesignated revenue to be automatically transferred to the School Division. 

As you will recall we strongly opposed, and continue to reject this approach to budgeting.

Finally, the budget booklet should show the annual debt service obligations over the next five years for bonds already issued and those projected to be issued in 2008-09.   Our citizens need to know how much county revenue is sucked away by debt service, or by how many cents the tax rate must be increased to cover the debt service.

During the last three years, overall population increased by 7.1% and school enrollment increased 10%. Meanwhile spending for county services increased 41% and school spending increased at a 35% rate. This is hardly responsible spending and could have been avoided had our recommendations been in place. And now our population and student growth rates are declining.

  

Continued meetings and dialog within our committee and citizens at large has produced the following comments and recommendations:

1. The County must be governed to live within our means; we can only afford so much government.
2. The Board must insist on reducing all non-essential spending across the county to provide taxpayer relief and minimize the burden on employees.
3. If you continue to insist on spending 2/3 of undesignated revenue on education, then you must highly prioritize the remainder to be spent on public safety and social services for children.

As a means to resolve this budgetary crisis, we make the following seven recommendations:

1. Demonstrate leadership and resolve by initiating severe budget reductions across the board.
2. Freeze current level of funding for essential core government services.
3. Apply comprehensive spending reductions in all other departments and outside agencies.
4. If at all possible avoid layoffs by reducing hours of some full time positions to 32 hours while still maintaining corresponding benefits. Consider pay cuts for executive positions.
5. Return the Strategic Reserve back to the 10% minimum required.
6. Reallocate Transportation Reserves to the General Fund.
7. Reexamine and prioritize need to fund Regional agencies.

In closing we request you act upon our comments and invoke the fiscally responsible decisions you were elected to make.

Thank You

National Pro-life T-shirt Day is April 29, 2008

What is it?  Visit www.nationalprolifetshirtday.com to learn more.  According to Jim Gilmore’s press release today, he is pro-life (now) so he should be announcing his support of this 6th annual event any time now in a wide release on behalf of one of the nation’s largest and oldest pro-life organizations based right here in his district.

GILMORE CAMPAIGN DEMANDS BOB MARSHALL APOLOGIZE

March 12, 2008

For Immediate Release:

Contact: Ana Gamonal
Tel. 703/504-9041
Cell Phone: 571/205-5628
Email: ana@jimgilmoreforsenate.com

GILMORE CAMPAIGN DEMANDS BOB MARSHALL APOLOGIZE
AND STOP ATTACKING PRO-FAMILY LEADERS

    ALEXANDRIA - The U.S. Senate campaign of former Gov. Jim Gilmore today demanded that Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William, who is also seeking the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, apologize and stop attacking Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, Attorney General Bob McDonnell, and the long list of prominent pro-family Republican leaders who are supporting Jim Gilmore.

    “To say that Jim Gilmore or the many prominent Republican leaders who support him have a “death wish” or are not pro-life is, at best, ill informed and, at worst, out of control political opportunism,” Gilmore’s campaign manager, Dick Leggitt, said. “Del. Marshall’s unfortunate attacks on these distinguished Virginians are repugnant.”

    “Del. Marshall should apologize to the Republican leaders he has unfairly attacked and take a moment to remember the  alternative is electing Mark Warner to the U.S. Senate to vote with liberals Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Chris Dodd and Ted Kennedy on this and other important issues like taxes, spending and national security.”

    “It’s a shame that Del. Marshall’s rhetoric is becoming so overheated.  He needs to remember that the goal of Virginia’s nominee is to defeat liberal Mark Warner in November,” Leggitt continued.  “The fact is, the objective of this campaign is to prevent liberal Democrats like Mark Warner from taking complete procedural control of the U.S. Senate.  To that end, it would be helpful if Del. Marshall would either come in out of the sun or put on a hat.”

    “Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, Atty. Gen. Bob McDonnell and the more than 30 pro-family Republican leaders who are actively supporting Jim Gilmore as the Republican candidate who can defeat liberal Mark Warner know that as Governor of Virginia , Jim Gilmore stood for the preservation of traditional family values time and time again,” Leggitt said.

    “These Republican leaders know Governor Gilmore is the only active statewide Republican leader who has carried the state twice and carried Northern Virginia twice and they also know he pushed through successful legislation that created a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking an abortion,” Leggitt said.

    “Governor Gilmore successfully worked for legislation which required parental notification for minors seeking an abortion and helped enact legislation which banned partial birth abortion.  He also created the Virginia Abstinence Initiative, dramatically increased funding for adoption services and signed into law legislation banning human cloning,” Leggitt said.

######