Neighbor John Musolf: Parish & Gillaspie Do Not Understand Town Budgeting

Our Oro Valley neighbor John Musolf is recognized by those who know him as being one of our community's more knowledgeable residents when it comes to financial issues.

John sent me the following email. I believe it is worth reading----especially for those who have not yet cast their votes.

One may say, it is just another example why we need to elect Bill Garneer & Salette Latas.

Art
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Art:

I thought you might be interested in the article in the Explorer some weeks ago by Pat McNamara that stated; "OV's financial forecast is better than anticipated" and my letter to the editor called "Oro Valley can't take care of its basic needs."

In the Explorer article, Stacy Lemos, OV finance director, was talking about all the surplus the OV would experience in its budget.

Our Town Council, especially Terry Parish and Barry Gillaspie, talk quite often about the OV Council building up its contingency fund for short term financial problems and how wonderful our budget is performing.

It illustrates that the two council members do not understand budgeting. They look strictly at the short term budget but ignore the OV long term liabilities such as the area of Pavement Management which maintains our 600 miles of streets.

The best analogy I can give is your household budget. Your ability to pay your current bills by using your current income might result in a short term surplus.But if you ignore or under-pay something like a long-term mortgage you might have the bank eventually show up with a foreclosure notice.

John Musolf

Here is The Explorer article & John's letter.

http://www.explorernews.com/article/show/21341
http://www.explorernews.com/article/show/21428