Our Oro Valley neighbor John Musolf has some major concerns about the town's budget. The following is an email from John.
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The United States, the State of Arizona, Pima County, and the Town of Oro Valley are all experiencing a recessionary economy. Every day, television and newspapers bombard us with the housing credit crunch crisis. Many people are losing their homes or cannot cope with the house payments because of interest rate increases. Additionally, energy prices for gasoline and utilities have gone out of sight. Food prices have doubled in many cases. Many families are finding it extremely difficult to survive. We hear stories of where people have to virtually give up food to have enough money to buy gas to get to their job.
People are reducing their personal budgets to the “bare bones”.
I have looked at the Town of Oro Valley Town Manager’s Recommended Budget 08-09 and believe that the Town of Oro Valley must do the same critical “belt tightening”. I have seen little no attempt by the Town Manager to try and control or reduce proposed expenditures. I recently wrote a letter to the editor of the Explorer Newspaper (June 11, 2008) concentrating just on budget personnel costs. The town manager recommends both step ($1.5 million) and merit increases ($384,000) for the town employees. This has nothing to do with cost of living increases for inflation. It is like an automatic pay grant or “entitlement” for the town employees. I don’t believe the taxpayers have had their pay increased recently in this current economic situation.
A major element missing from Oro Valley’s budgeting process is cost justification. The Oro Valley budgeting process perpetuates the status quo or increases it. It ignores economic conditions. It does not research whether things such as increased productivity have reduced the need for something like increased labor (personnel). Or whether a department can operate in a more efficient manner. The budget calls for 5-½ new positions. Has each recommended position been critically reviewed and justified? What services will suffer if these positions are not added?
Although, my letter to the editor was directed to personnel costs there are other “Red Flags” in the budget that need to be reviewed: For example, the Town Managers’s recommended budget for 2008/2009 has $50,000 allocated for a historic cultural inventory. Why is any taxpayer money being used to support this type of request in this recessionary economic time? What is the imperative (who or what will suffer) if this historic cultural inventory is not performed now? What “in-heavens-name” is a historic cultural inventory? Who on the historic preservation commission (HPC) placed this request (there is no vote recorded in the HPC minutes) with the town manager for inclusion in the 2008/2009 budget?
In my opinion, the Town Council and the taxpayers need to take a very critical look at every penny in the proposed budget.
John Musolf
Oro Valley Resident and Taxpayer
