Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Governmental Budgets

It appears to me that our governmental entities here in Utah budget just as well as Utah families. That, unfortunately, is not a good thing. I believe many families in Utah don't budget well. In fact, many studies show that American families in general don't budget well. Many American families subscribe to the buy now, pay later mantra. We see this as well in government. Many governments are willing to place bonds and then increase fees paid by the citizens to pay off the debt. Wouldn't it be better to plan ahead and save some extra money to pay for the improvements before they occur?

In Woods Cross, we will see our water fees increase by a significant amount in the near future. This is to pay for a bond that will be used to build a new water storage tank and to drill a new well. This will mean that both our garbage and water fees will have been increased significantly in the space of one year. I would suspect that if you were to look back on the last 14 years of Woods Cross government, you would see that taxes and fees collected by Woods Cross City have increased at a much higher rate than inflation. Is this being a responsible government?

1 comment:

Jesse Harris said...

The unfortunate reality is that taxpayers, as a whole, are very sensitive to taxes being any higher than they have to be right now. It's a hard thing for elected officials to explain that increasing taxes now means lower taxes later, that it avoids the need for bond debt, but such a position would get you run out of office.

I often wondered how it is that cities wouldn't take such measures. Then I saw their residents speaking out in opposition to any and every tax in their path.