CH Tax Hike: A Modest Proposal

Last week Colonial Heights City Manager Tom Mattis presented his 2014-15 proposed budget that included a “modest” 2 penny tax increase. He argued that the increase was needed in order to provide services the community had become to expect from the city, and the new funding would go to pay for several added positions, most notably at the shiny new courthouse. I guess we should have expected the new courthouse to require additional Sheriff’s deputies in order to maintain Order in the Court and keep the judges safe from potential harm from the criminals they incarcerate.

Certainly those are important goals. But the city does not need to address their shortfall by scraping even more money off the backs of its citizens via a real estate tax hike. In fact, they really need to look within for a source of the $300,000 projected shortfall the increased taxes are expected to cover. Each penny in taxes raises about $150,000 for city coffers.

The City Manager would have us think that a two penny hike is not that much of a hike. But, a hike in taxes is more money out of the citizens’ pockets. And in this economy, most people are looking for ways to cut their own budgets, not spend more. The way out of a hole is to stop digging.

Without digging too much into the proposed budget, I would think that there must be some other way to address such a small amount of money so that the citizenry doesn’t have to shoulder yet even more of the burden. The city needs to look at the expense side first.

Budgets are a balance between what comes in and what goes out. In my house, that means cutting costs, and cutting costs means looking at ways to make the income meet the outgo. So we look at our home services and see what can be reduced or cut if necessary. Some things are static, but there are ways to economize and ways to keep the status quo in place. Sometimes, you have to do without things and other times you have to make tough choices.

The city has opted to try to get through this down turn in the economy without losing personnel, an honorable effort. But the truth of the matter is that many other companies, cities, and governing bodies have had to do precisely that to maintain their balances.

Payroll is the greatest hit to any budget. There is more involved than just wages; each position has associated costs for benefits, training, and equipment. When big budget cuts come down, the rest of the world tends to look at salaries as one way to meet the loss.

For our shortfall, we are not talking about a lot of positions. Just a few would make a difference, and there are so few—two or three—that such could be accomplished rather easily by attrition and not filling vacancies. We are not talking about layoffs or early retirement offerings or anything like that. We don’t really have that many employees that such a move would be beneficial, but we do have people who leave their jobs and move on to other opportunities. When that happens, I recommend not filling the position, or at least taking a lot of time to fill it. All of that “lost” time amounts to savings on the plus side of the ledger.

For my two cents, I would hope the city looks deeper into its own staffing. Do we really need all the people we having working in all of those positions? Do we have the proper amount of people staffed for each department? Aren’t there standards for some of the departments that recommend staffing levels? It seems to me to be a reasonable question.

After that, let’s take a look at some of our larger priced purchases. Are we buying new heavy equipment? Do we really need it right now, or can we phase in the purchases over time? Is it possible to share purchases between the city and the schools? If we have to buy new equipment, is there a way that we can negotiate a better price for buying two or more vehicles?

When it comes to budgeting and the potential for a tax increase, it behooves the city and city council in particular, to turn every stone and look at every possibility. There are a lot of citizens who are living on fixed incomes and even a two penny increase in taxes will have a negative effect on their lives. For me, before you start digging into my pockets you should make sure the circumstances are dire. Need a new truck? At my house, we look at getting another year out of the old one. The city is not so large, a mere four-square miles, that getting more time out of a vehicle is impossible.

The economic downturn has hurt everyone. Keeping the city above the fray may not be the best way to go. I applaud the desire to keep everyone on the books, but why not freeze new hires and look at downsizing a bit before taking a bite out of the home owners? There may indeed be an issue with staffing and the distribution of staff. It may be the case that we have too many in one department and not enough in another. These are the things the city needs to look at, and not whether they believe the people of Colonial Heights can withstand this modest proposal.