Spinning Straw Votes Into Fool’s Gold

A Democrat majority of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners on Thursday night conjured millions of dollars from thin air to bolster funding for county programs and services without having to hike property taxes in an election year.

Flush with a sack full of phantom money, the board then proceeded to embark on a dizzying spending spree, doling out nearly $15 million in less than two hours: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools landed an additional $6 million; the libraries, an additional $3.5 million; Central Piedmont Community College, an additional $900,000; parks and recreation, an additional $1.2 million; the Sheriff’s Office, an additional $1.1 million.

That’s a lot of addition for a county that’s supposedly stone-broke and wallowing in debt. But with a party-line straw vote and a wave of the wand, Democrat commissioners managed the feat simply by increasing the amount of sales tax revenue projected to be collected, despite explicit warnings that doing so could have dire consequences.

In crafting his recommended budget that included $81 million in cuts, County Manager Harry Jones said he had been deliberatively conservative in low-balling sales tax revenues, projecting about 25 percent less than what was collected this year, “to avoid the predicament of being in the position of making reductions six months from now, like we have done for the last two years,” when the county had come up short revenue of what had been budgeted.

The warning fell of deaf ears, as Democrats upsized sales tax projections by $9.5 million, for an amount on par with what was collected this year.

“I think that we’re in a period of slow recovery,” said Commissioner Dumont Clarke. “I think it’s reasonable to project a flat amount (of sales tax collection).”

In doing so, Democrat commissioners have become little more than rouge gamblers; betting that the economy will improve and sales tax revenues will roll in accordingly.

“I’m concerned that if we create an additional $10 million out of thin air, which this appears to be doing, we’ll use that to put off some really hard decisions that we need to making this year,” said Commissioner Neil Cooksey, part of the board’s Republican minority that voted against rolling the fiscal dice.

Commissioner Harold Cogdell, a Democrat, dismissed any such negative thoughts.

“The message and signals that we send will have some psychological impact on this community,” Cogdell said. “If we believe that we will not see recovery, or that we’ll see it at a slower pace, than that is a contagious thought that can spread.”

Armed with positive karma and visions of sales tax dollars dancing on the horizon, commissioners took a series of straw votes Thursday night to divvy up the magical money, along with some real coin obtained by less supernatural means: $1.4 million that staff had redirected from other parts of the budget and $1.5 million that was cut from the Department of Social Services. The board’s Democrat majority also voted to increase the police service tax for the county’s unincorporated area by 2.58-cents per $100 of assessed valuation, a move that yields about $1.5 million.

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