Before voting Tuesday night to approve a $10.9-million business investment grant for Siemens Energy Inc., Mecklenburg Commissioner Vilma Leake wanted to know how soon she could start landing jobs at the company for her friends. It turns out, not as soon as she thought. Leake, a Democrat, said she “took some young men out to […]
With Mecklenburg County struggling under crushing loads of debt and facing a massive budget shortfall, Republican commissioners are concerned that their Democrat colleagues may use the county’s threatened triple A bond rating as an excuse to hike property taxes. Similar to a homeowner’s good credit rating, the county’s premium bond rating allows it to borrow […]
While some Mecklenburg residents have been pitching in to raise money for the county’s beleaguered library system, donating nearly $250,000 over the last few weeks, a group of literary scofflaws has been headed down a decidedly different financial path. About 10 percent of folks who use the library owe roughly $176,000 in fines for overdue […]
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education moved a step closer Tuesday night to the grim reality of having to layoff upwards of 800 employees, including about 600 teachers, in response to a funding shortfall that could require the district to cut $80 million from its budget. With a 6-3 vote, the board rejected a motion to […]
Revisions that the city council approved Monday night to a program that provides loans to small businesses sparked debate about whether the initiative was more focused on social engineering and exerting government control over the private sector, than on creating new jobs for a community battered by high unemployment. With the approved program revisions in […]
Eliminating middle school athletics has become a nearly perennial threat used by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to help rally support for more local funding come budget season. Usually it works and somehow a last-minute, Hail Mary pass comes through to save sports, along with band, arts, and music programs. But this year, with CMS facing upwards of […]
Mecklenburg County commissioners will have to wield a double-edge sword as they carve their way through the budget process. First they need to trim about $20 million in cuts from the current-year budget to bring it in line with tumbling revenues; then turn around and plan for hacking up to $95 million in targeted cuts […]
The Board of Education learned Tuesday afternoon that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools would need to fork over $6.3 million from its current-year budget to help close an estimated $20-million shortfall in the county’s current-year budget. And that was the good news, compared to what followed: Board members were told that County Manager Harry Jones would be pitching […]
The findings of a citizens’ Water Solutions Task Force released this week reveal that a lot of folk in Cornelius apparently enjoy long showers and really green lawns; that Charlotte’s utilities department has problems with defective meter readers; that the city has for years been raiding the utilities treasure chest to pay for capital projects […]
Faced with a bruising debt crisis that is bringing new borrowing to fund capital projects to all but a screeching halt, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education this week started a process of prioritizing school construction plans. Or maybe that should be re-prioritizing. When voters approved a record-high $516-million school bond in 2007, the board of […]
