January 12, 2010 – monoblogue

Found money

I can almost hear the Church Lady now: “isn’t that conveeeenient!” But I suppose Wicomico County dodges a bullet:

With the recently completed official audit for Fiscal Year 2009 now in hand, Wicomico County Executive Richard M. Pollitt, Jr., has announced that an additional $3.5 Million are available to support the county’s Roads operation until the end of the current Fiscal Year on June 30, 2010. Until the County received the final audited fund balance report on the Roads fund, records indicated that these funds were encumbered and, therefore, not available. As a result of the updated information, Mr. Pollitt has withdrawn his pending budget amendment request for the use of General Fund appropriations to support Roads.

Mr. Pollitt commented, “This new information somewhat changes the overall budget amendment which the County Council has been considering since I submitted it in early October. In the General Fund, neither the revenue nor expense portion now includes additional appropriations for Roads, and therefore helps to conserve the County’s General Fund reserves. I believe the adjusted amendment now conforms to my wishes and to Council’s stated intent to place Wicomico County in the best possible financial position to enter the upcoming Fiscal Year 2011 budget session.”

The county has been forced to consider using General Fund support for Roads operations since last summer’s State cut of roughly 94% in traditional Roads revenue. Pollitt has repeatedly pledged that he will not allow the Roads Department to close and that the roads will be kept safe.

However, I don’t think that because of this “found” money the county should abandon the cost-saving measures they were considering in order to keep the roads department going. It should also be an opportunity to look into privatization of certain functions as is prudent both fiscally and servicewise.

Again, this goes back to having the budget compiled from scratch each year, something which was promised by Rick Pollitt when he ran for office in 2006. In this case, though, someone messed up and placed the $3.5 million in a column of money thought untouchable. Obviously the buck stops with the County Executive and it makes me wonder what other mistakes have been made which wouldn’t have been discovered without an audit and how much they may have cost county taxpayers.

But it does take away another excuse to remove the revenue cap and means county roads may not be in such bad shape after what’s shaping up to be a tough winter.

Like this will happpen…but we can dream, can’t we?

GOP hopeful for Governor Larry Hogan is at it again, stating what’s obvious to anyone with common sense and who lives outside the I-95 corridor:

On Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 the Maryland General Assembly will convene its 427th Session. It is the final session of Martin O’Malley’s term and much of the focus will be on how to close the $2 billion structural deficit he created.

“O’Malley increased spending by more than a billion in each of the last three legislative sessions. Before Maryland can get out of this recession, Martin O’Malley must stop the spending spree, stop raising taxes on job creators, and stop asking taxpayers for bailouts,” Hogan said.

“In typical O’Malley style, he will let the legislators do the heavy lifting. Then, he’ll take the credit or pass the blame,” charged Hogan. “The state’s Spending Affordability Committee has recommended a zero-growth budget. The big question will be whether or not Martin O’Malley will listen.”

“If history is the judge, the answer is no,” said Hogan. “First Martin O’Malley blew through a $1 billion surplus we left him. Then, he increased taxes by over $1.6 billion. And when that was not enough, he then took a multi-billion dollar federal bailout which he used to increase spending three times higher than the Spending Affordability Committee recommended.”

“Martin O’Malley is no leader on fiscal restraint and his record tells the real tale. Increased spending, record tax increases, and a failed fiscal policy has caused Maryland to lag behind 42 other states,” Hogan said.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Maryland is one of just 8 states that lost jobs in its most recent monthly report.

“Maryland’s families are hurting. Our small businesses are leaving, or worse, closing altogether. We deserve better,” said Hogan. “It’s time for someone to take the reigns (sic) of the state and lead it out of our current crisis with fiscal policies that encourage long term job growth and businesses to stay in Maryland.”

“During these tough economic times, Marylanders deserve a Governor who will roll up his sleeves and get to work addressing these tough issues,” Hogan concluded.

Whether he has to beg (his friends in Washington), borrow (from whatever funds still have money), or steal (from the pockets of unwitting taxpayers), Martin O’Malley will get his wish. I don’t care what the SAC said about a zero increase, my prediction is that spending will increase as much or more in this budget as in any of O’Malley’s previous ones because it’s an election year and Martin O’Malley has to make sure his special interest buddies get more than crumbs so they’ll support him come November. The rest of us will get the crumbs now and the tax increase will come soon enough, in 2011 when all are safely re-elected.

Yet General Assembly Republicans can do Hogan and the rest of the ticket a favor by proposing a sound alternative to the budget (as they can since the General Assembly doesn’t set the budget) but more importantly just saying no to what O’Malley presents. There’s nothing more frustrating to the rank-and-file GOP member as seeing their Delegate or Senator selling out because they happened to get some goodie in the budget for the district – meanwhile that small favor is paid back many times over in higher taxes, fees, and the like. I’m going to be damn disgusted if there’s fewer than 37 GOP votes in the House of Delegates and 14 Senate votes against the O’Malley budget. (Yes, that means all hands on deck for this one.)

Maybe the Maryland GOP doesn’t like primary fights, but when there’s a member who deserves to go because they play ball too much with the opposition, I want to see them. We all deserve a choice, and if the Delegate or Senator thinks they deserve re-election they need to secure their base by convincing the Republican base they’re worthy of support on principle, not on simply having “Republican” on their ballot line.

If there’s one thing I dislike about Larry Hogan on a political level, it’s the fact that he would bow out if former Governor Ehrlich finally decides to get in on the race. I don’t think Ehrlich deserves a coronation because there may be someone out there who would better govern Maryland by conservative principles. I haven’t heard Ehrlich taking it to O’Malley like Hogan has and Bob needs to show me he has the fire in the belly again before he can earn my support.

Perhaps it’s not the “establishment” thing to say, but no one ever said I was conventional anyway.

One small victory

Eventually it may be something which needs to be changed, but for now this is the prudent move as a fairly rare show of bipartisan support for fiscal responsibility. While this came to my attention last week it’s a good time to visit things which have to do with our General Assembly. This comes from the Maryland Senate Republican Caucus:

In response to harsh Republican opposition and taxpayer outrage, the Democrat leadership of the Maryland General Assembly issued a statement (last week) and conceded that there will be no proposals to increase legislative compensation over the next four-year term.

Senate Minority Leader Allan Kittleman issued the following statement with regard to the recommendations of the Maryland General Assembly Compensation Commission:

“With so much hardship facing Maryland’s taxpayers, now is not the time for legislators to consider pay increases or other enhanced compensation. Unfortunately, historic tax increases and bad policy decisions by Governor O’Malley has significantly added to the fiscal burden that has been placed on Maryland’s citizens. While Republican legislators have strongly opposed this “tax and spend” mentality, the Democrat majority has rubber-stamped the O’Malley agenda instead of stopping this economic “piling on” of our fiscally-stressed taxpayers. Maryland taxpayers are absolutely correct when they express their outrage on this process.”

We have been. Actually, many of the wealthiest taxpayers are voting with their feet and heading off to more friendly tax climates like Florida. (Admittedly, at the moment the weather there is no bargain.)

And the flight isn’t limited to taxpayers, as businesses are fleeing the state too.

Later this year, there will be an interesting test case of how Maryland attracts businesses in competition with other states. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman is moving from Los Angeles (yep, another business leaves California) to the Washington, D.C. area in order to be closer to its government customer base.

Unless Maryland figures out a way to sweeten the pot, my wager is that Northrop Grumman decides the better business climate of Virginia will be the right home for them. It’s a story repeated far too many times, to the detriment of would-be employees in Maryland.