Ten years ago I sponsored two budget-related initiatives in response to what I perceived as a threat to our community’s long-term, economic well being. At that time the borough’s total budget was just over $6 million, and its then almost completely depleted reserve account had been used regularly to make up for constant overspending. Something had to be done to protect our residents from excessive taxation and to insure that our government lives within its means.
Those initatives included the now infamous “tax cap,” which lowered the allowable limit on our mill rate to 10 mils, and another that required a balanced budget. Since their passage, the tax cap has become the whipping boy for every budgetary problem in the borough’s annual spending plan. And if you’re wondering what happened to the balanced budget initiative, well it’s been quietly ignored by every successive administration since you voted it into law.
Today the borough’s spending plan is a staggering $13.9 million, over twice what it was just a few short years ago, and according to the April 7 CVN article, it’s still not enough. So even though the borough has managed to double its revenue stream in those intervening years with that awful tax cap in place, we’re now being asked to consider doing away with it. I have a better suggestion for this administration: Learn to live within your means, and pass a balanced budget.
Mike Armour