Friday, June 22, 2007

The 1.5% Solution for Brookfield

If you think that it's smart to have the State of Wisconsin controlling local spending, think again.

Republican leggies, ever-mindful of re-election, put on their cheap perfume and lipstick, hiked up their skirts, and imposed property-tax controls on municipalities a few years back.

The crowds cheered as Leviathan grew, again. Locals now have to perform multivariate regression-analysis calculations to comply with Leviathan's mandates, screwing other State taxpayers AND their own residents in the process.

The upshot:

To be able to increase city spending in 2008 by 4% but not lose $125,000 in state aid from exceeding spending limits, the city's finance director is asking aldermen to revise the 2007 budget to spend to the maximum allowed amount.

Not doing so could mean the city will lose the $125,000 or have to trim spending by nearly $500,000 - more than a third of the total increase the city needs for 2008, according to city Finance Director Robert Scott.

The discussion following makes one's head hurt--with the usual sure-fire "Scary" line from the politically-aware spreadsheet-spitter:

"Five hundred thousand dollars - that's five cops," Scott said.

O my gawd! The cop-shop will be pared to the bone!! Who in Hell will give out the traffic citations?

There is one alderman who apparently still has his head screwed on straight:

Ald. Gerald Mellone said the city should be able to find $500,000 in cuts from a $35 million budget.

Yah, hey. It's one-and-one-half PERCENT of the total.

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