The fiscal year has about two weeks left; it’s time for a quick recap of where we stand on budgets for fiscal 2005-06.
First, forget about the federal government. Its fiscal year doesn’t start until Oct. 1, apparently just to mess with the planning of everyone else in the nation. Congress and the White House have long since stopped caring about that deadline anyway, and, of course, they make no pretense of trying to balance spending and revenues.
The first semirealistic government authority when it comes to annual budgets is the state. Well, maybe semirealistic is overstating things. The House, the Senate and Gov. Mike Easley have developed an almost-federal fondness for now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t revenues and accounting tricks to make the budget balance. It’s a game that forces the legislators and Easley to start a billion dollars in the hole every year, which allows actions to address the drastic crisis that was created, or invented, in Raleigh to begin with.
It looks like the “temporary” state sales tax is here to stay (no surprise), the boosted top-tier personal income tax isn’t going away (for those of you with a big income, we’re sorry), the cigarette tax will be higher (unless the battles over how much higher produce a stalemate, leaving us at a nickel a pack and increasing the chance that those vans making illicit runs up to New York will carry smokes instead of cocaine), and we’ll have a lottery (or not). As usual, despite all of the new revenue, the state will seemingly cut education, Medicaid, other social services, public safety, etc.
The big problem, however, isn’t the taxing or the cutting. It’s that the legislature is on a pace that might allow it to pass a budget in time for the start of the federal fiscal year. By that time, all of the local governments and school systems are a quarter of the way through the year, and that means three months of spending without knowing how much money they’ll really have.
Speaking of the local governments …
Isn’t it remarkable that the Henderson City Council held half a dozen two-hour budget meetings before City Manager Eric Williams proposed his 2005-06 spending plan, has held almost as many meetings since that proposal was unveiled May 26 and is still far from finished?
Isn’t it remarkable that the Vance County Board of Commissioners waited for County Manager Jerry Ayscue to present his budget proposal May 26, met twice and is all but done, with only the formal adoption of the budget still to come? The commissioners and Ayscue even managed to cut a penny off the planned property tax increase, so the tax rate will be 92 cents per $100 valuation, up from 90 cents now. There’s also a $15-per-household increase in the annual sanitation charge. So you’ll pay $35 more over the course of the year if you own a $100,000 house.
We have to wait and see in the city. The group health insurance will cost the city $150,000 less than Williams proposed, but the inaction on sanitation is going to consume at least two-thirds of that amount. We’ve heard nothing to indicate that Henderson won’t get what Williams suggested: a 5-cent increase in the property tax rate, a 10 percent rise in water rates and a 15 percent jump in sewer rates. Don’t expect final decisions much before the council adopts the budget June 27, and don’t be surprised to see a lot of changes on the spending side in the months after July 1.