The Mount Airy city budget is up on ready to view online. It will take at least a weekend to dissect it all, but the bottom line is a water fee increase of 8 percent and a tax increase to boot. The water rate increase is especially dicy, given outrage over last year’s 45 percent hike. The general fund could always subsidize the water/sewer fund to drive down rates, if we can find something out of the general fund to cut. Since the budget document is now in plain view, the work begins combing it for potential adjustments. Any impressions?
(and for context’s sake, here is where to find a breakdown of water rates in other North Carolina municipalities)
People can’t afford to continue to pay more for water. Our commissioners as well as the city manager needs to hear from everyone about this.
We all know from recent articles that the city has spent $12 million of it’s reserves over the past several years. We also know our taxes and fees are high and have been high for a long time. The obvious question is how in the heck could the city have spent so much even while collecting such high tax rates?? The obvious answer is extremely poor management that allowed repeated excessive spending.
Now we see the same city manager who presided over these past years of drunken sailor spending telling us in the newspaper that our problem is we didn’t raise taxes high enough???? How out of touch can a person be????
You NEED to voice that view to each and EVERY commissioner. Everyone! If not, things won’t change.
Keep in mind it was the previous commissioners (lead by the city manager) who allowed us to get in the mess we are in today.
As of last November, we had changes in the board of commissioners and I believe things are different. Problem is, all the money has already been spent .
Shucks, lets just go out and buy another Recreation Center and add another department and why don’t we buy more land for the post office when they get ready to build 50 years from now! What we have between the old P.O. and Main & Cherry Street won’t be near enough by then! Maybe we need to buy where Surrey Bank is (Renfro & E. Pine) for Recreation parking. They could use the bank for departmental/staff offices for recreation. We would need to add in a tunnel underneath the intersection for access! Oh no! I’ve just let new capital expenditures plan out of the bag for the city manager!
Oh, I think most of the COMMISSIONERS understand that people don’t have the money.
Seems to me that BOOJAY has nailed this issue. Don’t blame the past commissioners, blame the City (MIS)Manager, Don Brookshire. He was the one who did the budgets. Most of the commissioners (past and present) don’t have the guts to stand up and fire this incompetent man. Why doesn’t someone do a history check on Brookshire? They will see he ruined another city before Mt. Airy. The answer is simple to the budget problem because I faced the same thing in business. Every year for 6 consecutive years, my boss told me to reduce my budget by 10%. He did not care how it was done, just that it was done. If I could not reduce the budget, I knew my job was in jeopardy. Guess What Donnie Boy! I did it and still got stellar results….as a matter of fact my department went from the worst in the company to the best in the company!
I found out we could do more with less! And the city of Mt. Airy is no different!!!
All we need is leaders with GUTS to do the right thing….not the popular thing.
The editorialists that stick up for the city and city (mis)manager are wrong!!!!!
What people are forgetting is that the City Manager works for the commissioners. If you don’t like the work the city manager is doing let all the commissioners know.
Dear Miss Management,
Where oh where to begin? Oh yes, the City Manager. Just know that most city managers in towns and smaller cities are given more power in life than their job description would show. Sames goes for most county managers. But there are good boards who expect a level of professionalism and honesty, and who can tell the difference. No one wants to be thought of as a heavy or nag, but with the wide spread feelings on the subject, spines can firm up and tackle the situation before it gets any worse.
This comment is directed to Greyhound 74:
What the heck did you say….you wrote something, but said nothing. You must be in city government communicating like that. BTW….My spine is very firm and my “hackles” are up over taxes and government interference in my life. Pretty soon they will tell us when we can go to the potty….
Just remember the Boston Tea Party and why it happened. As they say on the Weather Channel, “It could happen tomorrow.”