Orange County Commissioners attempt to WASTE more money!
BOCC Public Hearing - May 12, 2020
2020 -2021 Budget Proposal
Public Comment
Orange County has the highest property and sales tax rates in the state. The 2020 – 2021 operating budget proposal is not an austerity budget – at $273.6 million it continues to increase spending resulting in a two year increase of $15.0 million dollars. An austerity budget would at the very least return spending to the 2018 – 2019 budget level of $ 258.6 million. This budget proposal is just more of the same increased spending with some window dressing like the elimination of employee performance bonuses to make it look like some austerity measures are being taken. These comments do not even get into the discussion of the capital budget and borrowings that present great future risk for taxpayers.
One positive change would be to institute an immediate five year freeze on any spending on light rail and transit programs. After the massive waste of over $150 million dollars by Orange County government and GoTriangle there is clearly a need to stop these failing programs. This action should be followed by ending the County association with GoTriangle for more savings for the taxpayers of Orange County. This should also lead to the elimination of the Article 43 Sales Tax adders.
Another change would be to immediately and permanently cease all funding of programs, persons, entities and organizations that shield and shelter or aid and abet the massive foreign criminal enterprise of illegal immigration. Orange County government departments should be reduced to reflect this change to further reduce cost. Providing tax funds for illegal immigration quite possibly is illegal under federal and state laws and should never have occurred in the first place.
Also, the funds allocated to outside agencies should be cut rather than increased. Charity is the responsibility of private citizens and organizations, not government. The budget of $ 1.54 million dollars should, at the very least, be reduced to one half million dollars. The current approach of making this a percentage of budget only guarantees increased cost every year with no specifically identified need.
No where in any of these budget proposals is there any identification of cost reductions through productivity improvements or the many expensive investments in technology. Costs should be going down from the benefit of these actions.
All cost reduction actions should be used to reduce the sales and property tax rates—not to increase government bloat.
While there are many other areas of potential reduction such as cancelling the recent half million dollar transit study and the half million dollar unnecessary climate tax spending, there is not enough time allocated for detailed review and analysis by private citizens to point out all these opportunities. Someone in county government needs to start advocating for the taxpayers and the thousands of citizens and businesses that have been financially damaged by the Wuhan virus crisis and the bloated Orange County government.
Stop gouging our citizen taxpayers -- cut the spending and borrowing!!!!
Presented by Orange County Citizen, Riley Ruske
**Here are the ways to make comments to the Board of County Commissioners or to make comments at one of their meetings (Business or Public) which allow citizens to comment. Citizens are not allowed to make comments at their Work Sessions but can submit emails to them for consideration.
To contact all Board members by email:
Go to Orange County website
Put your cursor on the Government tab
Click on the Board of County Commissioners tab
At the top right of the page is a link "Contact Us"; click on it if you want to use their email form; this will go to all commissioners and the Clerk of the Board
Alternatively, use your own email program and send the email to the address : [email protected]: this will also go to all commissioners and the Clerk of the Board
If you want to make comments via email for a Business or Public meeting, you can use the above method or the one below
To see the Meeting Agenda:
Go to the Orange County website
Put your cursor on the Government tab
Under the Board of County Commissioners list is a link "BOCC Agendas"; click on this link
Click on the one of the two links under each year; one link is to the abbreviated agenda, the other is the agenda with all the details for each item on the agenda
If you want to participate live by video follow the detailed instructions at the bottom of the Agenda notice. Remember that you have to register before 3:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting or they will not put you on the schedule.
There are also instructions for you to phone in if you wish and also instructions for you to send them an email to be read at the meeting by the Clerk of the Board. In any case, you have to register or send the email before 3:00 p.m. of the day of the meeting
If you want to see the proposed budget--and I highly recommend you at least read the County Manager's summary which is about the first 15 pages of the 500 page document:
Go to the Orange County website
Just under the Covid 19 banner are some links
The link that is second from the left is "County Budget" and takes you to all the budget information: current proposal, past budgets and some other information