In today's paper, there is a longish article outlining the current mayor's desire to pass a 2011 budget that doesn't raise property taxes or fees (the same mayor who has raised both every year he's been in office, who just coincidentally is currently running for governor against an opponent who has opposed increasing either taxes or fees for his entire career). Unfortunately for his campaign, the city agencies aren't playing along, and have put in requests for significant increases.
Now, I'm just a humble c.p.a., and don't really understand the math that politicians use, but some things just don't add up in this whole budget process.
Those of you who hate math can stop reading now; figures and percentages after the jump. (click post title)
On the face of it, the requests for increases by the city agencies would jump the budget from 2010's $1.44 billion to $1.61 billion, or 11.8%.
But hold on a minute - the 2010 budget includes a $49 million payment to the city pension fund; no payment is required for 2011. Deducting that payment from the 2010 overall budget, then calculating the percentage increase year to year gives us a whopping 16% jump in the budget from 2010 to the proposed 2011 level.
To cover these requests from the city agencies, a 20.26% increase ($50 million) in property taxes would be needed.
The really lousy thing about this? Even with the budget increase requests, the mayor still intends to ask for at least four unpaid furlough days for city employees in 2011.
I don't know about you, but my head is spinning. After a certain point it's just more numbers; that's what politicians count on, at least until the bills reach the taxpayers. Then it's too late to do anything.
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