Perhaps this was an exercise in civility or people are just resigned to their fate. But tonight’s public hearing concerning both the constant yield rate and FY2011 budget drew only about 70 people and little if any fireworks.
Let’s begin with the constant yield hearing, where Director of Finance Patricia Petersen carefully explained the legalese which in essence told us that the county was choosing not to lower the property tax rate to that where the revenue yielded would be the same (constant yield) but instead maintaining the same rate as last year. Instead of lowering the rate to 74.91 cents per $100, the rate will stay at 75.9 cents per $100 – that extra penny gained by keeping a stable rate will net Wicomico County $683,364 in additional revenue, yet no one commented. That state-mandated hearing was over in about three minutes. So while Rick Pollitt can say he didn’t increase the tax rate, it proves the old adage that “your results may vary.”
The remainder of the meeting was conducted by Council Administrator Matt Creamer. In essence, Creamer went through each department heading and solicited comments on each, saving the school budget for last. He also reminded us the budget process allows County Council to either pass the budget as is or pass it with cuts. They also can change allocations to increase the share for education (per state law) but the total budget has to remain the same by making cuts elsewhere.
Aside from education, the largest reaction came to the library budget. Library head Tom Heyman noted that 40 percent of the public relies on the library for government information, and that social media was even having an impact on the budget – a Facebook petition to save Pittsville’s library branch had garnered over 750 signatures.
Perhaps the most self-serving portion of Heyman’s remarks was his bringing up the videos being made at library locations to beg for sparing from the budget axe. By encouraging “victims” of library cuts to make this sort of scene they’re playing for emotion rather than hard facts.
On the other hand, local observer Kim Trenka used a car analogy of a Lexus versus a Honda to make her point about funding for a new library – however, there’s no money in this operating budget for a new library. (The capital budget may be a different story.) Yet Michael Calpino, another local resident, mentioned that branch hours aren’t being cut equally – the Bivalve library branch is proposed to be open just 12 hours a week. Taking 4 hours from the Centre branch and the Pittsville branch would bring the Bivalve branch back to 20 hours, a number Calpino would be “happy with.” He also suggested a fee could be charged for those out-of-county residents who use their services, particularly at the mall-based Centre branch.
After the rest of the budget was brought up, the floor was opened to general comments and Matt Trenka stepped up. His message was that the county needed to do more with less just as the Strategic Air Command did once the BRAC Commission made its recommendations. He also chided the County Executive for having a budget which was “worthless” in its lack of specificity and documentation and warned County Council not to “drink the (executive branch) Kool-Aid.”
While she didn’t dispute the lack of budget documentation, which was the subject of what she termed an “honest article” in the Daily Times last week, County Council president Gail Bartkovich mentioned that information was now more forthcoming.
In what seemed to be a much more conciliatory tone, both Board of Education president Mark Thompson and superintendent Dr. John Fredericksen pledged to help out as they could. Thompson noted the BoE was “working diligently” on addressing the budget needs while Fredericksen added, “we’re in this together.” Both were mindful of trying to minimize the effect on what Dr. Fredericksen called the “teacher-learner interaction.” Fortunately, thanks to a number of retirements the BoE was confident they could avoid layoffs.
Even local citizen Kay Gibson, a frequent critic of the BoE, was “impressed” with the board’s willingness to make painful cuts.
But not every citizen was pleased. Local political blogger and gadfly Joe Albero was disappointed that Delmar’s experiment with year-round school would come to an end as kids didn’t tend to retain knowledge over a long summer. John Palmer repeated his call that the two at-large County Council positions be eliminated.
Despite the best efforts of Creamer to close out the hearing before I had my say, I wasn’t denied. (I think he didn’t notice I was standing in the back patiently waiting my turn.)
The points I wanted to make were regarding two things: the lack of foresight I see in the budget presentation and the idea that, if this were to be considered a rock-bottom budget, perhaps now would be a good time to adopt TABOR rules. This would limit future spending increases to a factor comprising the growth of population plus the rate of inflation, computed as a percentage – for example, if population grew 1% and inflation was 2% spending could jump no more than 3 percent. It’s a legacy I believe we can live with.
Even with my closing comments, the meeting only ran 70 minutes – compare that to previous budget hearings and I think the people know that the die is now pretty much cast. There were only a dozen speakers, including myself.
As is usual practice, County Executive Pollitt did not attend the meeting but Public Information Officer Jim Fineran did represent the office.
