Dare County Budget Workshop

According to today's Coastland Times and the commissioner's meeting agenda posted on the county website, Chairman Warren Judge has announced a " 2010-2011 budget workshop" at 6:00 pm. on Monday, following the board's 5:00 pm. regular meeting. Whether Judge can get a rope on all 6 of his board members long enough for them to "work" on the budget is anybody's guess.

EOD recalls a time about ten years ago when former board chairman/lady, Geneva Perry held one of her budget workshops. Perry required every single county department head to come to the "workshop" and explain and justify their departmental requests. The workshop lasted several days, and if Perry's board didn't learn anything, EOD sure did. He attended all sessions of the workshop.

Perhaps, given the current budget crunch and the fact that we have a new county manager, who, in all fairness, is a greenhorn when it comes to preparing government budgets, now is the time to do it like Perry did it, all over again.  But, don't hold your breath, taxpayers.

Fact is, EOD places the odds at less than 50/50 that all seven commissioners will be present for the full workshop on Monday.  Most likely to be absent or skip out all together are Commissioners Richard Johnson and Mike Johnson.

In fact, Richard Johnson, who has missed his share of budget meetings, once told EOD, ..."...the  workshops are a waste of time because Terry (former county Manager, Terry Wheeler) will do what he wants with the money anyway..."

Well, perhaps Johnson was correct and perhaps he continues to be correct.  But, one thing is sure, if he and the other six members of our county board wants to keep a tighter rein on spending, they are sitting in the right chair(s) to get it done.

Again, we're not holding our breath, we're just crossing our fingers we can go one more year before Judge and Company unleashes a property tax increase on us.

We say, if they would enact that final one percent occupancy tax on the tourist to help pay for governmental services instead of beach nourishment, we could probably avoid a property tax increase for years to come.

We know, we're just dreaming.
========================================================================