The folks from Myers Park who jammed county commissioners’ phone lines last week could benefit greatly from a free subscription to our local paper — as could one of that publication’s own columnists. Like the other people fighting to “save” the Cornelius, Belmont Center, Carmel, North Park and Hickory Grove library branches, angry residents of Myers Park actually seemed to believe that if the county commission doesn’t raise taxes, or if it cuts the budget further, the Myers Park branch and the other five facilities will be shut down. Because they apparently don’t read newspapers, or can’t remember what they’ve read, they don’t know all that much about the library branches they’re trying so valiantly to save. They’re not alone. They have a lot in common with the misguided crew that’s trying to save the parks and swimming pools from shut down or shorter hours due to “budget constraints.”
They’re all pawns in a game of bureaucratic manipulation played every year at budget time, from the federal government on down. Bureaucrats like County Manager Harry Jones know that the fastest way to bloat a government budget with yet another tax increase is to threaten to take away the government services people use the most due to “budget cuts” in “tough times.” They count on the fact that the public doesn’t pay attention to what happened the last time they threatened to take similar measures.
Last year, Library Director Bob Cannon warned that if the library system didn’t get the money it “needed” in the county budget, trustees would have to decide whether to close all the library branches one day a week or cut hundreds of programs for kids and senior citizens.
Since it was an election year, county commissioners — who’d raised taxes 15 percent the year before — decided not to raise them again. Then the miracles began. Despite the “cuts” to the library system Cannon had railed against, he announced that two new libraries would open the next year. This was followed by yet another miracle three weeks later, when Cannon announced that library hours would remain unchanged because he’d “found” a way to transfer employees from other branches to “fill the gaps” despite losing 29 unfilled positions.
A month after that, the trustees of our economically devastated library system unveiled a master plan to create six new branches and replace nine existing branches before 2012. They also announced that library staff had been working on plans to replace the Myers Park branch with a bigger facility. They’d even spent $38,000 on a consultant study to figure out where to put the new libraries, they said.
Other miracles abounded. Ray’s Splash Planet, a water park built by the county, opened in November. Somehow, there were funds available to employ the dozens of employees it takes to run it. Yet just four months later, when the new county budget season kicked off, county bureaucrats were again whining about how broke the county is. In May, the commission stopped whining long enough to vote to give Time Warner Cable $5 million over 10 years as a “reward” for locating here. At the time, County Commission Chairman Tom Cox admitted that it’s hard to tell if incentives are necessary to attract a company.
Miracles occurred in the school system as well. While pleading for the money a tax increase would bring last year, former schools superintendent Eric Smith predicted that due to “growth,” 3,500 more students than are usually added to the system would show up to school in the fall. Without more money from the county to accommodate them, he’d have to cut fifth-grade band and the school system would suffer a “crippling” $16 million shortfall.
Not only did nearly 3,000 of Smith’s estimated 3,500 extra kids fail to show up, but a private group came in to teach band in September and by October, the new school superintendent, James Pughsley, had somehow managed to “find” an additional $5.5 million by making cuts here and there, including fewer new purchases of furniture and vehicles. Pughsley also found an additional $4.3 million from various “sources” the school system refused to identify to the media.
Every fact written above was reported by at least one local newspaper in the months after the county’s budget debates — just like the one we’re having right now. If people would read them, they wouldn’t fall for this stuff.
Some perennial favorites county managers recycle each year for the budget chopping block include cuts to programs for impoverished pregnant women, domestic and child abuse victims and education programs for poor kids.
Then there are the creative cuts. The year after a man with a bomb shut down the county courthouse, former County Manager Jerry Fox told commissioners that without a tax increase, they’d have to cut the jobs of 19 deputies who provide courthouse security. When the West Nile virus began making the news regularly, whaddaya know, cuts to the county’s mosquito control staff were threatened at budget time.
You get the picture. As far as I’m concerned, the county commissioners who walked out of last week’s budget hearing because they can’t get the tax hike they want should just kept walking.
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2003.
