I attended a Council of the Whole meeting a few nights back where my city's Common Council discussed funding for the annual 4th of July celebration. Because of a tight city budget, the mayor asked for cuts. Here's what he got:
The 4th of July celebration is NOT self-funding; revenue coming in does not match expenditures, and the city generally has to kick in (yet, I think beer is a mere fifty cents at this ostensibly family-oriented event - but that's a topic for another blog Beer is $3 per cup - tickets for beer are fifty cents each.). So, visitors to this year's celebration may well have to go without childrens games, flags and bleachers for the parade. (Update: flags are back).
One more community amenity on its last legs due to budget shortfalls.
There is no shortage of local pandering to tax revolt fantasies in suburban America. In communities where precious few public amenities exist to begin with, the mathematically challenged (is it really so hard to look up the definition of "median"?) rail against what they view as an egregious property tax bill.
These are the same people, of course, who celebrate the 1979 "taxpayer revolt" passage of California's Proposition 13, the result of a campaign funded by eccentric millionaires. It's effects have rippled out across the country, eviscerating communities while perhaps saving homeowners fifty or sixty bucks a year on their property tax bill.
Why do strip malls and speedway collector roads dominate the landscape where we once enjoyed prosperous downtowns, safe streets, parks, open-all-week libraries, and actual sidewalks? You can trace the genesis of our current "geography of nowhere" to tax freeze enthusiasm whipped up by well-heeled interests.
Troy Senik in National Affairs:
The two-thirds requirement for tax increases, for instance, is a result of 1978's Proposition 13 ballot initiative, which also capped the state's property taxes at 1% of assessed value and ensured that the assessed value can't increase by more than 2% per year. In the three decades since Prop. 13 passed, it has saved California taxpayers more than half a trillion dollars. But its limitations on property-tax revenues have also led the state to rely far more on income and sales taxes. And with the state's steeply progressive tax code leaving it heavily dependent on the capital gains of California's wealthiest citizens, bear markets inevitably lead to disproportionately sharp downturns in state revenue. The legislature then finds itself unable to stanch the financial bleeding through tax policy, since it is constrained by the two-thirds rule.
Victory for the "tax revolt." Meanwhile, California - its education system and public sector the envy of the nation in the sixties - sinks into ruin.
Read below about another tax revolt victory in Colorado Springs. Facing property tax increases to make ends meet, politically fearful municipal "leaders" bent to threats by "anti-big government" sentiment.
Welcome to the concept of consequences.
COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.
"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."
Read the rest at:Colorado Springs cuts into services considered basic by many - The Denver Post.
And MORE piper-paying: LA City Council slated to consider 1,000 job cuts
Further reading: Paradise Lost: California's Experience, America's Future by Peter Schrag
Honest question here, why is the line item for police & dpw zero and misc zero in '09 but $15,500 combined in '10?
Posted by: Adam | February 03, 2010 at 12:22 PM
That is not only an honest question, but one that I am asking around about as well.
Apparently, the police and DPW do not budget for their year while taking into account predictable, annual occurrences like the 4th of July Festival.
Posted by: John Michlig | February 03, 2010 at 12:34 PM