The County of Albemarle is looming towards financial chaos, just like the Federal Government under Tom. Revenues from real estate and sales taxes are falling as fast as Obama’s approval rating. The school division is threatening to cut up to 99 teachers, and the county is cutting some staff and freezing positions again. If you can freeze it, you can cut it.
It is sure to be a noisy budget hearing tomorrow in Lane Auditorium and the public will be taking sides of whether to raise taxes or hold them where they are. How will this affect Ken Boyd?
Let’s take a look at a few things. Boyd was elected to the BoS (Board of Supervisors) in 2003. The county operating budget, includes both general expenditures and schools, were at $197.7 million before he was elected in 2003. Last years county operating budget was $270.8 million. That’s over a 50% increase in 6 years. That’s a BIG (a little big wouldn’t be right) increase in government. It can’t be all put on Boyd’s shoulders as there were two tax and spend liberals on the board in cahoots with the two remaining tax and spend liberals still on there. I’ve heard him say that he was responsible for cuts I’m not sure on that one though, I think he was only 1/6th of the cutting team.
I’ve combed through the county’s budget documents like most people have been doing the last few months while getting ready for the looming budget hearing and haven’t been able to see lots of transparency. I can’t find a single monthly expenditure report. It’s all figured out by the year, so I’m not sure how much is being spent each month. There are no organizational charts showing departments and staffing (none that I could find on the county website) so I’m not exactly sure where savings could be found and what I would cut. And like most civil servant jobs, the staff are making gobs of money, much more than the private sector, and that has a lot of people ticked off. It’s almost as if it was a reflection of Washington DC in a mirror.
These exact same problems also permeate the school division too. I can’t find monthly expenditure reports or organization charts. I have a serious problem with the lack of transparency from both the county and the schools. Like father, like son, so the saying goes. Is this the kind of leadership that the 5th needs? 6 years of what exactly? Tax hike after tax hike say most residents of Albemarle County.
Is Boyd, who helped lead and direct a $300 million county budget qualified to direct the nation and control the purse strings on the US Treasury? Will he lose support when he raises/lowers the citizens of Albemarle’s taxes? If he lowers/holds taxes, he cuts school funding and you know how riled up parents get when that happens. What will happen if he raises taxes? What will he do?
This will be interesting to watch and I’ll report again on how he votes in about a month.
11 Comments
should we have a betting pool?
i bet he does not vote to raise taxes at this time.
If the BoS would just raise the property tax rate, the amount people would be paying would stay the same (because property is worth less these days), therefore there would be the same amount of revenue, so the schools wouldn’t have to cut 99 teachers.
The schools say they will cut 99 teachers in the Tier 3 cuts. But the real issue is transparency. We can’t see an org. chart or monthly expenditure reports to make reasonable judgements where cuts should occur so we don’t have to cut teachers.
Why is always a threat to cut teachers? Why not reduce the amount of administrative staff and have all principals and above take pay cuts.
This is not thought out very well. Was it all Goode’s fault that US spending went up from somewhere like 1.6T to 3.1T in his 12 years in congress? “It can’t be all put on his shoulders.” Very LITTLE should be put on his shoulders. Boyd was consistently outspoken against the tax raises. It’s hard to blame him for others’ misdeeds.
Just because he was on the BoS doesn’t mean that everything the BoS did was his fault (or credit, for that matter).
In the last five years the Albemarle County budget increased by 26% Boyd voted yes on every one. How many people out there that have had the same job over this time have had their pay increased by 26%? Not many I bet.
I understand that Boyd was the lone”conservative” on the board at this time but he could have voted against the budget just to make a point. By the way every vote was unanimous.
I’m no fan of Ken Boyd though I’d take him over Robert Hurt.
However, Much as I’d like to make him look bad over this mess it has little do with him and more to do with the criminals up in D.C. and their bad policy that got us in this mess.
No to increased taxes.
In our house we don’t get to say to our employer “hey boss, times are tough I want more money” instead we say to ourselves “hey selves, times are tough we need to spend less money” The citizens need to understand that.
Boyd’s finally got control of the board for the first time in 6 years- let’s see what he can do with it.
Can you go back and fix the darned italics? It’s in the “Feda For Draft, Against Fairtax” post. Thanks.
Tom Perriello sent out a mailer this week at the tax payers expense FULL of lies that can be proven to be lies.
Albemarle;s government org charts are easily found — you didn’t look very hard! Just go to any Department at Albemarle.org, and along the right column you’ll find “Organizational Charts,” They’ve been there for a couple of years now …
Thank you. I hadn’t looked in the individual departments, just trying to look at it from top down which is where it should be.
Now your challenge is to find a current School Division Organizational chart!