We get letters, lots of letters, most by email to: admin@mctaxpayers.org. or sent to individual members of our Board of Directors. We take this as a strong indication of the growing frustration our members and readers of this column have with our local governments and their spending addictions. We appreciate the interest and information most letters provide, but it is impossible for our limited number of volunteers to respond directly to each one. However, I want to assure those writing that every letter is read and most are passed along to all members of our Board.

As an example, this week we fielded letters stating concerns about the County Commission approving a $700,000+ dog park and spending $200,000 for a consultant to evaluate a fee based Storm Water program. The points made included comments such as: We all love our pets and want the best for them, but is this really the time to make this park a priority? Why are we hiring another consultant?.…this is just another way to tax us. Correspondence about the School Board focused on approval of our efforts to get their meetings televised on channel 20.

Over the years we have tried to respond through this column by mirroring the concerns of those that spend the time to contact us. From our growing membership, increasingly positive correspondence and validation of our positions by civic and government leaders, it appears that we are making our members' concerns known. It also appears that at least some of our elected officials are getting the message and starting to re-consider their attitudes toward those concerns.

Today we will try to directly address this week’s mail, and will make a New Year’s resolution to be more visibly responsive in the future. Our reply: Unfortunately, as bad as these are, the Dog Park and Consultant are not the most egregious waste of taxpayer money currently occurring in Martin County.  The School Board's disregard of another well paid Financial Consultant's advice that would have prevented millions of our dollars from being frozen by the State (and currently in significant danger of being lost), or spending over 42% ($7 million) more for an identical new elementary school in less that 3 years, or borrowing millions for new school construction when they had nearly $100 million "in the bank" for that purpose come to mind. 

On the County Administration side, there are continuing policies that result in operational budgets requiring up to 94% of their dollars spent on personnel costs. These policies will continue to be a severe financial burden for decades to come without major changes.  Unfortunately, the decision to hire new Fire/EMS personnel late on the Friday before Christmas, based on the false assumption that they will significantly affect out of control overtime costs, indicate no solution is yet in sight. Regrettably, there are many more wasteful practices tolerated in our County and City governments than we have space to discuss here.

.   In short, until individual School Board, City and County Commission officials change their attitudes toward spending your money, and find the political courage to honestly address these situations, there is little hope for lasting change.  Only continued and concerted action by our organization, other civic-minded groups, and individuals such as those writing us, can really make a difference.  To those writers: please make your concerns known to your Commissioners and School Board Members as well as MCTA.  If you desire and indicate approval, we will forward your correspondence, along with the comments that we regularly offer, to the appropriate officials.  We will not forward anonymous correspondence, so if you would rather not have your identity disclosed please put "withhold name" on your letter or e-mail.

And, on this last column of the year, we want to wish one and all a prosperous, happy and less taxed New Year.