A front page story today describes county budget cuts as past the point of cutting to the bone. We are now amputating limbs.
The struggles of the county mirror the struggles of cities, counties, and states everywhere. While there should be periodic cost/benefit analysis of the services that are being provided by any government, we have not had much public discourse over what services we are willing to pay for.
The ox being gored in this round of budget cuts is Justice. Both the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office will see cuts. Some of the cuts are in programs that I’ll admit I didn’t even know existed. Evidently we have resource officers at schools to “prevent crime” in schools. Things sure have changed since I was in school—I don’t think I ever saw any student do anything that would be considered against the law. Girls maybe wore their skirts too short, but that wasn’t a crime, just bad behavior based on newly discovered hormones. Of course that was before kids started taking guns to school and shooting each other and teachers.
There were two comments toward the end of the article that especially caught my eye. Some employees have agreed to a 10% cut in pay in order to avoid further cuts of staff. And we can expect even more cuts next year because of the way that property taxes are adjusted—the value of property went down this year, but that downward trend won’t hit the budget until next year.
I have a vague memory of the County Commissioners freezing their own salaries last year—maybe they even took a cut. My memory isn’t perfect. And they don’t earn as much as some county commissioners in Colorado—despite being one of the largest counties in the state. But Mesa County is also one of the poorest counties in the state. Should we be paying county commissioners three times the average salary of a worker in Grand Junction?
Homework:
Mesa County Budget Cuts
National County Commissioner Pay Rates
Colorado County Commissioner Pay Rates
Guess Who the Largest Employer in Mesa County Is
The struggles of the county mirror the struggles of cities, counties, and states everywhere. While there should be periodic cost/benefit analysis of the services that are being provided by any government, we have not had much public discourse over what services we are willing to pay for.
The ox being gored in this round of budget cuts is Justice. Both the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office will see cuts. Some of the cuts are in programs that I’ll admit I didn’t even know existed. Evidently we have resource officers at schools to “prevent crime” in schools. Things sure have changed since I was in school—I don’t think I ever saw any student do anything that would be considered against the law. Girls maybe wore their skirts too short, but that wasn’t a crime, just bad behavior based on newly discovered hormones. Of course that was before kids started taking guns to school and shooting each other and teachers.
There were two comments toward the end of the article that especially caught my eye. Some employees have agreed to a 10% cut in pay in order to avoid further cuts of staff. And we can expect even more cuts next year because of the way that property taxes are adjusted—the value of property went down this year, but that downward trend won’t hit the budget until next year.
I have a vague memory of the County Commissioners freezing their own salaries last year—maybe they even took a cut. My memory isn’t perfect. And they don’t earn as much as some county commissioners in Colorado—despite being one of the largest counties in the state. But Mesa County is also one of the poorest counties in the state. Should we be paying county commissioners three times the average salary of a worker in Grand Junction?
Homework:
Mesa County Budget Cuts
National County Commissioner Pay Rates
Colorado County Commissioner Pay Rates
Guess Who the Largest Employer in Mesa County Is
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