Securing council approval proved difficult, and reaching consensus impossible, the last time Mount Airy put together a budget. The hard part was that cuts had to come from somewhere lest taxes go up, and there was plenty of last minute wrangling to decide what got the axe.
So this year the council is getting a bit of a head start on setting priorities. As outlined in the Jan. 28 Messenger, they’ve gone ahead and ranked on a scale of 1-10 the necessity of every service the city provides. Average the scores out and you have rankings for more than 300 functions of city government that will serve as a starting point for discussions during this week’s council retreat on what can be cut in the new budget. While the items scoring perfect 10s or those with the lowest marks immediately catch the eye, it’s the middle range where some of the more interesting questions arise. Services that averaged between 6.0 and 8.0 are the kinds some would regard as luxuries while others defend as absolute essentials. Consider the following list, all of which scored low enough to at least merit some debate this week on their importance.
—maintaining sidewalks
—leaf collections in the fall
—Christmas tree collections in the winter
—cleaning the streets with a sweeper and flusher
—maintaining landscape beds such as the war memorial
—tuition reimbursements for city employees continuing their education
—public safety education programs for residents
—security surveys of business and residential properties
—recreation programs geared to teens or senior citizens
That’s just a sampler. Taken together the rankings could spark a lively debate on the proper role of local government.
[...] landscaping advocates asking for mercy. The blowback of the Mount Airy city council’s ranking of essential a municipal services is that those who see their items of choice at the bottom are alarmed at what the final budget [...]