There is a trick often used in budgeting. Maybe not a deliberate action, more just overlooked due to inexperience or incompetent auditing. Let’s keep an example of it very simple. A project that might improve the function or appearance of the city appears before Council. They vote for it and the necessary dollars are “budgeted” or “earmarked” by the Treasurer…common business practice. No checks are to be written against that account for anything else. Time goes by…the project never develops. An audit should reveal the projects budgeted dollars are intact. The money had been “earmarked” therefore is now available for some other expense. It might make sense for an auditor to determine if there are such budgeted funds lying around unspent. There is reason to suspect that various city administrations have in the past suddenly pulled rabbits out of a hat causing ripples of happiness among the taxpayers and applause for the administration. On the other hand what if checks had been written on that account for other purposes? There could be many bad reasons for that, all worthy of explanation.
3 comments:
Two stark examples. Your Social Security contribution was budgeted and earmarked for you retirement. Sorry, Congress has been writing checks on that account for many years to pay for other things. The same can be said about dollars taken from you and set aside for Medicare. But the politicians paid other bills with it and now want you to pay for their mistakes.
Maybe it's time our Council took a hard look at the way the city does business.Budgeting is a science and it seems we have amateurs holding the checkbook. Assessments had to go down and finally did but not much. City top salaries are too high and should be cut. Cut employees might complain but they are not going anywhere. And there probably is plenty of redundancy. There always is in any government.
Perhaps the City should attempt to collect the money it is owed before it increases the taxes on those who actually pay. I believe the SNH featured an article a few months ago that dealt with the City's unwillingness to take property owners to court when they were not paying property taxes. By actually enforcing the laws on the books, couldn't the City raise a little of that money that is so desperately needed right now? Raising taxes may be the only option, but if people refuse to pay and the City does nothing about it, well...I'm inclined not to write a check next year, too.
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