by John Salyer
The new Administrative Services Director with only 6 weeks on the job found that the reports given by our city officials of being flush with money were not true, and hasn’t been for the last 6 years. While the public continued to ask the council how they could say the budget had a surplus, the majority council members kept saying everything is fine or ignored the public altogether. It now appears the city’s Finance Department was playing shell games with our cash; never showing the true picture.
The council would like to say they asked and were given information that showed everything was okay. Here is where the problems of a city government run by a big government liberal majority fails. If those people who live off government money never learn how to handle money by running a private company then what do they really know about reading P&L statements and setting budgets? They may truly have been left in the dark but ultimately it is their fiscal incompetence that’s the problem. When about 87% of the budget is used for wages and benefits any request of a tax increase to continue to operate as usual must be met with a firm “NO”; “it’s time to change their very expensive big government liberal ways”.
Fellow Chicoans, it is important to have a balance of common sense on our council. Big government liberal spending on feel-good programs at the expense of living within our means will ultimately harm us all.