Shadetree
Aug 23, 2007, 06:42 PM
Our County has been giving MILLIONS of your general fund $$ to special districts. I and my attorney believe illegally!
Monday August 27th the Board of Supervisors will meet to set the budgets for the "Special Districts" Yesterday during the public comment period of the hearing I got a chance to speak, I asked why we were using general fund dollar in special districts, and when these special districts were going to repay the "LOANS". I was quickly shot down by the "Chair" when I finished. He said he agreed that there is a problem it has been happening for years and the County is trying to fix it by having hearings as fast as they can and trying to raise rates. Then he said We can't just shut off their water a lot of the people that live in these special districts are low income, and can't afford to pay more.
Here is a glaring example of the problem.
Budget year 04-05 05-06 06-07
- $28,292 - $34,460 - $60,358 Those are shortages that were made up with your general fund tax dollars.
That is a total of $123,110 of your general fund taxes that were used to subsidize this water/sewer district over just the past three years.
There are 36 current customer homes in this district so that is $1,140.00 per year per home we gave them to help with their water and sewer bills. Nice gift huh?
I doubt any of you have driven through this little subdivision because it is a very exclusive gated community on the bluffs, full of multi million dollar homes It is called Sumner Hill. You can see it fromthe overpass on Hwy 41 overpass just South of Ave 12. Wave to your money as you drive by.
That was one special district now for the big picture:
RMA losses for special district services for just three years is listed below.
04-05 -$482,023
05-06 -$649,648
06-07 -$771,079
-$1,902,750 This is not the begining or the end it is just the years I have the numbers for.
The Problem:
Some of the districts were just plain wrong from the beginning, some areas started ok and just didn't raise rates when they needed to and yes some of it was caused by our County Government dropping the ball. At this point I don't think any of that matters. JUST PICK UP THE DAMN BALL !! Somebody! Anybody! This must stop now. One option would be for me to file another law suit, Another might be for enough people to show up or contact your supervisor and demand that this stop today.
Every dollar that is "given" to these special districts (or taken by them) comes right off of the top of the budget. Those dollars come from all of our other County budgets. Fire, Sheriff, Roads anything funded by the County is being hurt by this. All day today I heard department heads asking for more money and being turned down because there wasn't enough to go around. If there is no money in your pocket you better look for a hole in the bottom. We found the hole now we need to close it before we loose any more money.
For anyone out there that does not know what a special district is there will be attachments, but the down and dirty is: I create a subdivision of thirty homes. I drill one well and build a water system. None of the new owners want to keep it going and I want to move on so I form a special district. We make a contract with the county to use County staff to manage it and keep it going. In return the owners pay a water bill to reimburse the County for all costs. Great system when it works. We the county taxpayers do not benefit from the services of these districts and the law is written to protect us by not allowing general fund dollars to be used to help special districts. So how did this happen. YOU NEED TO BE THERE ON MONDAY AND ASK THE BOARD!
Monday August 27th the Board of Supervisors will meet to set the budgets for the "Special Districts" Yesterday during the public comment period of the hearing I got a chance to speak, I asked why we were using general fund dollar in special districts, and when these special districts were going to repay the "LOANS". I was quickly shot down by the "Chair" when I finished. He said he agreed that there is a problem it has been happening for years and the County is trying to fix it by having hearings as fast as they can and trying to raise rates. Then he said We can't just shut off their water a lot of the people that live in these special districts are low income, and can't afford to pay more.
Here is a glaring example of the problem.
Budget year 04-05 05-06 06-07
- $28,292 - $34,460 - $60,358 Those are shortages that were made up with your general fund tax dollars.
That is a total of $123,110 of your general fund taxes that were used to subsidize this water/sewer district over just the past three years.
There are 36 current customer homes in this district so that is $1,140.00 per year per home we gave them to help with their water and sewer bills. Nice gift huh?
I doubt any of you have driven through this little subdivision because it is a very exclusive gated community on the bluffs, full of multi million dollar homes It is called Sumner Hill. You can see it fromthe overpass on Hwy 41 overpass just South of Ave 12. Wave to your money as you drive by.
That was one special district now for the big picture:
RMA losses for special district services for just three years is listed below.
04-05 -$482,023
05-06 -$649,648
06-07 -$771,079
-$1,902,750 This is not the begining or the end it is just the years I have the numbers for.
The Problem:
Some of the districts were just plain wrong from the beginning, some areas started ok and just didn't raise rates when they needed to and yes some of it was caused by our County Government dropping the ball. At this point I don't think any of that matters. JUST PICK UP THE DAMN BALL !! Somebody! Anybody! This must stop now. One option would be for me to file another law suit, Another might be for enough people to show up or contact your supervisor and demand that this stop today.
Every dollar that is "given" to these special districts (or taken by them) comes right off of the top of the budget. Those dollars come from all of our other County budgets. Fire, Sheriff, Roads anything funded by the County is being hurt by this. All day today I heard department heads asking for more money and being turned down because there wasn't enough to go around. If there is no money in your pocket you better look for a hole in the bottom. We found the hole now we need to close it before we loose any more money.
For anyone out there that does not know what a special district is there will be attachments, but the down and dirty is: I create a subdivision of thirty homes. I drill one well and build a water system. None of the new owners want to keep it going and I want to move on so I form a special district. We make a contract with the county to use County staff to manage it and keep it going. In return the owners pay a water bill to reimburse the County for all costs. Great system when it works. We the county taxpayers do not benefit from the services of these districts and the law is written to protect us by not allowing general fund dollars to be used to help special districts. So how did this happen. YOU NEED TO BE THERE ON MONDAY AND ASK THE BOARD!