GOP Contenders Come Out Swinging
They’re not officially running as a slate, but they sure sounded on the same page.
Republican candidates for the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners at a Thursday afternoon presser blasted the board’s current Democrat majority for fiscal irresponsibility that has left taxpayers tapped and derelict management that has led Mecklenburg into perilous straits.
At-large candidates Jim Pendergraph, Corey Thompson and Dan Ramirez, along with District 3 candidate Barbara Eveland, took aim at everything from the county budget to a new pay package for County Manager Harry Jones, hitting on a common theme that called for change come November.
“Ask yourself, are you happy with the direction the county is headed,” Thompson said. “If the answer is no, we offer a new direction. The time to make better decisions is now. The time for change is now, so next year we’re not talking about cutting hundreds of teachers’ jobs.”
The recently adopted county budget, approved by a party-line vote from the current board’s Democrat majority, includes $71 million in cuts and layoffs for upwards of 300 county employees, along with hundreds more for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
A decision by Democrat commissioners to balloon the budget $9.5 million simply by hiking projections for how much sales tax might be collected next year – what Ramirez called “master political smoke-and-mirrors” – drew heat from all four GOP candidates.
“If the current (board of county commissioners) revenue projection is wrong, county government will continue to suffer additional job losses and shortfalls next year,” said Pendergraph, who pointedly noted that building permits in Mecklenburg County hit the lowest point in May in more than 16 years.
Criticism, however, wasn’t reserved just for the current board’s Democrat majority. All four GOP candidates took issue with incumbent Republican commissioners who helped unanimously approve a new pay structure for County Manager Harry Jones.
The pay change strips out Jones’ bonus for next year, after receiving a $38,000 one this year, and eliminates the county’s match to his 401(k) plan, a hit that all county employees took earlier this year. The changes decrease Jones’ total compensation package by 6.6 percent. At the same time, however, his base salary increases from $215,655 to $242,500, topping his total pay package for the coming fiscal year at $283,000.
“This is a 12.4 percent increase in his base salary when all other county employees have not had a raise in two years, and nearly 300 have lost their jobs,” Pendergraph said.
Eveland said the decision sent the wrong message to the public, when local unemployment rates top 10 percent and workers fortunate enough to still have a job have seen their salaries slashed.
When pressed on what any of the candidates would have cut from the recently approved budget, all four declined to offer specific programs or services. Instead, they said, it was the board’s responsibility to set spending limits and target percentage reductions to the budget, most referenced a 10 percent range, leaving it to a highly paid county manager and his staff to find appropriate cuts to meet declining revenues.
The current Democrat board majority, Thompson said, has failed miserably in that respect, retaining myriad low-priority programs and services in the budget at the expense of core government responsibilities.
“We got here,” he said of the county’s current fiscal woes, “by overspending and misplaced priorities.”
Pendergraph hit on a similar theme.
“The county,” he said, “has to learn to live on what it has, not on what it borrows.”
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