Letter to the Editor by Eric Broyles
Morehead City Taxpayer Alert
I do not know how many of our Morehead City residents required EMS services after reading about Morehead City Manager’s proposed 14 percent increase in property taxes reported in the Times-News on May 31, 2013. After the initial shock and awe wore off, I decided to investigate into the truth of the matter. I immediately talked with two of our “fiscally conservative” City Council Members and they confirmed to me this was the case.
Now that they had my undivided attention, being a fiscal conservative, I decided to look into the matter further and got hold of the proposed budget. In preparation for the journey or nightmare venture that was about to unfold, I gulped down three cups of highly caffeinated coffee so that I would be fully alert and attentive when reviewing the budget facts before me. Low and behold it did not take me long to discover some department manager’s recommendations that brought astonishment and shivers to my spine. I found over 70 expense items throughout the departments budgets (excludes water/sewer department) where individual department managers had recommended a 25% or greater increase over current year actual expenses. There were numerous expense items where their recommendations exceeded over 100% of the current actual expenses. For example, one manger recommended a 213% expense increase in office supplies while another manager recommended a 243% expense increase for their department office supplies. One recommendation especially caught my attention since it represented a 45,345% expense increase in safety program supplies. There may be a plausible explanation for these inflated expenses and time will tell. In short, most departments had numerous expense recommendations that exceed 10% or more over current budget expenditure.
Having prepared and approved budgets as an executive in the financial services industry, I can certainly understand how easy it is to overstate the actual amount your department may need to operate. The term “padding” the budget comes to mind. Likewise, we often find in a budget, items that are wants versus actually needs. It is not uncommon to find budgets bloated with expense overestimates in the private sector or government. This is the reason why our City Council and citizens must be the oversight on budget expenditures.
The only problem with overestimated or bloated budgets is that it may severely impact taxpayers by triggering a need for an unwarranted tax increase, which may be now occurring in the proposed Morehead City budget. Considering that 50% plus of our citizens are on low incomes, 19% plus are senior citizens, 9% plus are unemployed, and 44% of our school children are receiving federal school lunch assistance, would be deeply impacted by any significant tax increase at any level. Now is not the time to raise taxes, especially considering the upcoming home insurance rate increases that homeowners will be experiencing in the near future.
Hopefully, our City Council and elected fiscal conservatives will look closely at each line item in the budget and adjust downward these overstated expense recommendations. They may find through their budget review and due diligence that we may be entitled to a decrease in our property tax rates instead of an increase.
It is time to get governmental spending under control! I ask all Morehead City residents reading this article to attend the public hearing on the budget being held on June 11, 2013 at 5:30 p.m. at Morehead City Municipal Building located at 202 South 8th Street in Morehead City, NC. Bring your sign stating “NO MORE TAXES” or TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY”. A call to action!