IN YOUR CORNER
As we write this column, we are in the middle of the last day of our local primary election. We do not know who won or who lost. All we know at this point is that these campaigns just keep getting longer, meaner and more expensive, yet we seldom hear much about what any of the candidates were planning to do for the taxpayers. We heard a lot about stopping this or protecting that, but little or nothing about cutting the size and cost of local government.
We have to admit our frustration and disappointment with the County’s governments this year. With the tremendous jump in the taxable values (read the taxpayer’s assets) there was a great opportunity to roll back tax rates. It did not happen. We have railed on and on that we do not believe that spending at the levels established over the last few years is sustainable. We are already seeing many long time residents selling off treasured investments, rental housing and commercial buildings because of high taxes. This is the reality of high taxation and it affects the entire community as rental property becomes scarce and local businesses raise prices or move on.
We wonder how many voters even thought about the fact that our local governments spend well over one million dollars every day! The County Commission’s 2007 budget is now proposed to be over $410 million dollars by itself. Assuming 140,000 Martin County residents, THAT IS ALMOST $3,000 PER RESIDENT PER YEAR, OR OVER $8 EVERY DAY FOR EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN THE COUNTY. Remember, that figure DOES NOT include School Board or city/village budgets.
Even though the primary is over and most candidates will be unopposed in the general election, an opportunity for the County to further increase your taxes will be there. You will be asked to vote your approval for a one-half cent increase in the local sales tax. At this time we are not advocating, or actively opposing it. However, we continue to be concerned over any new taxes to support an already bloated government structure no matter how worthy the projected expenditures. We will make an evaluation and recommendation in this column prior to the November elections.
A lot of our members think that we should start interviewing each candidate for County Commission, School Board, Superintendent, Sheriff, Clerk, Appraiser, Supervisor and Tax Collector. They want to know where they stand and what they want to do about our spiraling local budgets. We do invite various elected officials and persons having an effect on our pocketbooks in to speak to our Board throughout the year. We report our findings and observations from these visits in our newsletter to members. Going forward we will consider formalizing these contacts and doing a better job getting this information out to the general public. However, our Charter prohibits your Taxpayer’s Association from endorsing candidates or criticizing individuals by name. We do report what we see in general terms, and encourage voters to observe the daily actions that speak far more clearly than slick campaign advertising or prepared speeches.
Regardless of who won the local elections we want to thank all participants; candidates, volunteers and donors. Without all of these fine people our system just does not work. There was a lot of criticism leveled at all of the candidates about how much they spent on their campaigns and where the funds came from. Unfortunately, the cost to mount a successful campaign for County Commissioner is approaching the ridiculous – hundreds of thousands of dollars - to achieve a hectic full time job that pays much less than many county employees. The few public forums are great, but those alone would never give a newcomer a chance to broadcast a message. We would guess that unless the newspapers, radio, billboard companies, printers, the Post Office and TV stations want to contribute space, materials and production costs, elections will continue to be more and more expensive. We think that this, coupled with the negative coverage of campaigns, keeps a lot of very qualified persons from serving in public office. That is too bad and one of the high costs of our inevitable transition from a very small community.