Budget suggestions

Here's where I think the town could save some money. First, don't expand the chapel hill libray. The preasent building is good enough for now. Don't build a new aquatic center. The town has two public pools as well as the ones at the YMCA and Medowmont. Also stop buying public art. It has to be a typo but I read the city plans to spend $420 thousand on art for the new opperations center. After that, scrap one of the two street fairs; either apple chill or festifall. Each of these events cost the city $30 thousand. Ditto for July 4th fireworks. The city should stop throwing money into the plans for construction on lot's 3 and 5. The planning on lot five alone has cost more then $300 thousnds so far and will end up with a $17 million white elephant. Last idea, put the old public libray up for sale. The city could get a million or so for the building and get out of paying mataince and utilities on a place that no one ever goes to.

Hmmm...Clark I have to disagree. Since Paris was brought up earlier in the thread, let's use that anology. What makes Paris wonderful isn't cleanliness, because, at least when I lived there, it wasn't clean. It was a typical big city with more than it's fair share of dog excrement on the streets. It does have beautiful parks, and sculpture, and culture. We can have all of that too, if we get rid of redundant expenditures like two fire chiefs, two town planners, two town attorneys, two mayors, two town councils. We have nothing to lose but our bureaucrats.

Amen!

Funny how all you conservatives choose to live in such an awful town.

Now thats an interesting comment (and a liberal leap). What conservative, who has posted to this thread or on OrangePolitics.org, has called Chapel Hill or Carrboro "awful"? ;-)

Funny how all you conservatives choose to live in such an awful town.

Somebody has to do it...the few, the proud...honor, duty, country.

In 10 years Chapel Hill will be GOP country!

First, I'm a liberal Democrat and I think chapel Hill is a swell place. I moved here from Ohio.
My point is that there are choices and the tax hike doesn't HAVE to happen. I think public art and public librarys are great investments and the town should keep it up. On the other hand, if we can't afford it now it seems like a small sacrifice to put it off for later.
One thing I'd like my fellow liberals to do is check out Battle branch trail. It's about a mile and a half stroll down hill and then you can catch the F bus back to the top. As you walk by century old trees ask you self would it be money well spent for the town to pave it? They plan to.

Terri,

I don't see a need to crunch numbers for you if you find the notion of sacking
town employees "unacceptable" because that's a part of any outsourcing
initiative. It's silly for taxpayers to pay a town employee $15/hour to cut the
grass when there is a private employee out there who will do it for $7/hour.

The constant focus "societal costs" is why Chapel Hill is in the mess it's
in--the focus should be on maximizing the value of each tax dollar spent, not
using the town government as an employer of last resort or trying to cure all of society's ills.

Have you ever wondered why it costs so much to live in Chapel Hill? Maybe because the over-emphasis on "societal costs" costs taxpayers?

Terri,

Have you not witnessed state and city employees taking especially long breaks or engaging in sloth-like performance? One only has to read the papers occasionally to see that governments (like Durham) often employ individuals who embed themselves into the bureaucracy and litigate their way into the deep pockets of local government and/or make frivolous claims of bias when required to perform. It's been my experience that small businesses manage performance issues more effectively or efficiently. Poor performers are more likely to be fired instead of promoted in small businesses.

Chapel Hill could also do a lot to encourage private businesses to use their own work as a form of advertising. One example of a private landscaper that saved the state about $30,000 is when the grounds surrounding the Capital Building in Raleigh were recently replanted and seeded. The owner of the business was given the chance to publicly demonstrate the kind of work he does (and is good at). This was work the landscaping business “donated”. I suppose that the landscaper wrote the donation off his taxes and got some benefit from advertising his business (posted signs while the work was being done and was interviewed by local media for his contribution/generosity).

Wayne--as an ex-state employee I am trying not to take offense. I know that there are state and city employees who don't perform up to their abilities, but I also know the commercial sector has problems with the stability and reliability of its workforce--especially in the lower skill jobs such as landscaping.

Please note that in my earlier statements, I did not automatically dismiss outsourcing. I acknowledged that there are certain aspects of town government that might benefit from outsourcing, such as activities that require specialized and infrequently used equipment or skills. Surely you are not advocating for a one-size-fits-all policy of outsourcing all town operations?

Before adopting a policy on outsourcing, I'd like to see a cost analysis. Contracting out for services means following a state-mandated bidding process that is both expensive and lengthy. There's also oversight whether the service is provided in house or outsourced. And to get out of a contract is very involved.

Despite Bill Oliver's dismissal of any long-term costs and consequences for anything, I believe the hidden costs of decisions must be brought out for discussion and given equal weight to short term efficiences. One of the only policies proposed by Newt Gingrich in the 1990s that I endorsed was the requirement to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before undertaking any large project. There are consequences to not providing regular landscaping work--such as blocked vision at intersections--or slippery sidewalks from wet leaves, snow, etc.

Outsourcing is an idea that I think deserves consideration, but not without a deeper exploration.

I think it would be mistaken to presuppose that a profit motive will solve all problems. As an organization (governmental or corporate) grows linearly in size the communication and other overhead grows at a faster rate. This is just an inherent property of human groups. Corporations (with a profit motive) and governments both feature this problem. The way corporations deal with this is to use the profit motive to try to reduce the influence. Government uses openness and elections. There are trade-offs to be made when choosing one method of organization over the other. Additionally, the profit motive theory also suffers from the fact that people don't always act in the economic sense of rational, i.e. they do things like volunteer and act in other ways that doesn't result in a profit for them.

If you see employees performing as you suggest, you could notify supervisors or your elected officials or even post specific instances on a blog.

Also, I can see hypothetical situations where a profit motive would not be helpful. "One only has to read the papers occasionally to see that" corporate malfeasance is not a rare event.

That is not to say that I don't believe that the profit motive is not real, just that it is not a cure-all.

Outsoucing would be an effective way of reducing costs, Terri, not only because we could take advantage of lower wages and worse benefits in the private sector, but also because we could simultaneously reduce the quality of service provided.

Just stop by the DMV License Plate office to see the fantastic results of outsourcing government jobs. Low pay and bad service - they go together!

-I believe in a town hiring freeze, until the consultant the town hired delivers the recommendations, so the most informed personnel decisions can be made. As someone who has seen consultants take over a huge number of positions in the federal government, services suffer. It would be better to better manage the employees we have. With outsourcing not only does there have to be a position to manage and evaluate the consultants, but consultants usually don't get treated as well as employees by their hiring firms, and it shows in their jobs. There is generally no fear of being fired for a poor job done, and the outsourcing agency is only conserned with service just before the contract renewal comes up. This practice actually costs the federal government money, but they don't report money paid to consultants as part of the civil service budget. And so it looks as if they are reducing the size of government and reducing redundancies and inefficiencies, when in fact they are creating more of them. It is a practice to be undertaken with caution, although to be sure, there are certain jobs, in certain situations better suited to consultants.
-Another point is that the environmental regulations and data we are seeing out of the EPA right not now, all have a definite right leaning spin. As all scientific data can be spun in one direction or another, be sure that the administration of the EPA is putting the spin they were appointed for on the science. For example, last year was the first time ever, the scientific report on the state of the environment, compiled by the EPA, had large sections censored by the administration of that agency. Consider the tint of the glasses we currently view our environmental data and policies through. The people running these federal agencies are not put there because they are objective. A new library or bus stop, while important, maybe useful for a decade or so, but one certainty is that the environment we live in is here for good, and we influence it everyday.
- I am not an accountant, but the federal government, in the last 4 years, has drastically cut money to that states. NC has been particularly hard hit by these cuts, for reasons including the following: weather related disasters, job losses, and pressure to meet no child left behind legislation. The state is facing a budget deficit and it follows that localities are as well. The federal government can afford to cut taxes, not fund new requirements put on the state and local governments, for example education and the environment, and run a deficit- because there is no will to hold them politically accountable. I would say to look at what you vote for at the federal level and try to follow how it trickles down. But that does not help us for the immediate future and it maybe that states and local governments may have to find a way to be more self-sufficient, which may unfortunately mean hirer taxes.
-It is worth noting though that as of this year, we are allowed to claim either state income or sales tax as a deduction on our federal tax returns.
-The federal government likes to look like the hero, giving tax breaks and requiring state services, but I am afraid it is the localities that suffer. The truth is most of our daily needs and services are meet by our town, and to a lesser degree our state, governments. The closer the government is to the people, the bigger the voice each person has, the more effective the government is. Who would you rather give your money to? I wish there was a simple way to redistribute some of the money we are all saving on our federal returns to the state and town government (where the money probably would have gone anyway).

Terri, Thanks for not taking my suggestions as some form of personal attack. I am trying to get folks to seriously consider competitive bidding for government projects. That's all. Tax funded monopolies have their uses but they should be limited. Bidders should be asked to compete not just on economical terms. Quality should count too. I'd like to think we could demand more for less. The way I see it, government should not be in the business of creating its own large business. I do understand the need for a few government supervisors, leaders or inspectors, but overall less government should be a good thing for all. The city could also do a lot more to encourage donations from private businesses or volunteers for some positions.

Mark, if the folks at the DMV felt more pressure to perform (potential replacement?) perhaps they'd be more “lively”? Yeah, we probably get what we pay for there and for as long as we keep our expectations low, we will get that (and less).

I also believe that it is worth requiring a consultant or independent auditor to make recommendations on how best to improve local services without raising taxes where this is possible.

Here's a really radical idea: cut the amount of supplemental school tax by opting into Easley's Learn and Earn program. This program could serve the AP/honors students as well as those who are in danger of dropping out to ensure that all kids have the same (or better) educational opportunities through Durham Tech, UNC or Duke. "Those schools, located on college campuses across the state, allow students in grades 9 through 12 to take high school and college classes that will equal an associate's degree or two years of college credit at the end of the five-year program."
http://www.dailytarheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02/10/420ae2369e263

Hi, please be careful not to plan to replace all the AP courses offered with some kind of college-campus oriented approach. My son has gotten a pretty good introduction to the true rigor of a college level course, at least from some teachers, while still having the support structure of a dedicated HS teacher and counselor staff looking out for him. What makes you think there is any spare capacity in the college system to take on hundreds of high school students? The newspapers say it is actually overwhelmed, due to people trying to retrain after losing their jobs. Why should high school students be expected to commute for up to an hour each way to the nearest college, for a single hour of class? It may seem like it would only take 15-30 minutes to drive, but then you have to park (somewhere) and walk, or else wait for a bus... I would agree some students, taking a less intense course load, might be happy to have this kind of break in their school day. Or should they just leave HS early and go to college full time- this is already available at many colleges. Let's consider the costs. UNC is highly subsidized by state taxes, unlike a Duke. I do not necessarily believe our overall taxes would go down, if every capable HS student were pushed out of HS. College professors are often paid more than HS teachers, although that is less the case at community colleges, where so many are just part-timers. So, many parents will end up paying for college 1-2 years earlier, and the students will pay the premium college prices for just the introductory level of college course. It sounds like a bad deal for those families. And to the extent that advanced education is a boon to society, it would be not so good for society to have the most academically gifted students doing 1-2 years less of advanced studies during college. The governors proposal seems aimed only at associate-degree students, unlike your proposal. I would be very curious to see how many students who take several AP courses do stop with just the 2-year degree. In my day, the associates degree was usually pursued by less academically talented students.

Matthew,

You should do a little more research. In states that have good community college systems and clear articulation policies, a lot of very academically gifted students are taking their first 1-2 years at the community college and then transferring on to the 4-year school. Some students do this for the cost savings and others do it for the safety net--community colleges are in general more nurturing than 4 year schools so they play an intermediate role between HS and college.

You might also want to check into the state and federal subsidies Duke and other private schools are receiving. They have been receiving more and more of our tax dollars, in essence putting them into competition with state-supported schools.

I went to the towns budget work groop this afternoon and my god it was dry. One of the problems the city has is that it can't take on any more debt for the next few years. Presently Chapel Hills debt is rated "AAA" by Moodys which means we pay a lower interest rate. If our debt service gets to be a higher portion of spending our rating will go down. The problem is that a lot of capital improvement spending is paid for over a period of time. For example, five years ago the city fixed the roof on the old library building and is still paying for it. They want now to buy emergency generators for the police station and town hall. They'd like to pay for it with new debt but, given the credit rating issue, they will have to pay up front.

IMHO, there is no one thing that brought us to this point. The city sold bonds for a lot of projects. Some more urgent then others. It's not really a tough choice if you leave it to the future to pay. That sort of easy choice won't be availible any time soon