Rifling through the city’s budget, a couple numbers stick out like peacocks in a sparrow’s nest: Mecklenburg County’s $2.9 million contribution to the uptown cultural arts facilities and the $11 million the county is slated to fork over to provide an uptown park for a development planned in First Ward, along with leveraging about $8 […]
There’s an old cliche when it comes to tweaking government budgets: If you want to add something, you need to cut something. Mecklenburg Commissioner Bill James is taking it to heart. James wants to increase funding for the Veteran’s Service Office, which is targeted to lose half its $1 million budget and seven of 14 […]
With Mecklenburg County drowning in debt and struggling to plug an $81-million budget gap, the City of Charlotte’s spending plan has managed to fly under the radar virtually unnoticed, despite being chock full of questionable expenditures that could stand a spotlight. Take, for example, the $602,000 that the city manager’s recommended budget allocates for so-called […]
As Mecklenburg County commissioners sift through the rubble of the county manager’s recommended budget, looking for places to tap cuts that could help save teachers’ jobs, there’s one data set that ought to jump screaming off the page. As of last December, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools had amassed an astounding 109 Central Administration positions that cost the […]
Fat, lazy grasshoppers in Mecklenburg, by way of Aesop’s fable that teaches to, “prepare for want before it comes.” County Manager Jan Winters explains how Gaston was able to avoid a tax hike this year, even while selling off the first load of bonds voters approved three years ago to build a new high school, […]
And no surprise that it entails hiking taxes and spending copious amounts of other people’s money. The latest from The Heritage Foundation reports that Congress is on a binge, increasing spending by $174 billion and adding $134 billion to the deficit, while hiding it under the guise of so-called “must pass” tax provisions. The gruesome […]
And doing so at the alarming expense of the private sector, which from 2001 to 2009 lost nearly 50,000 jobs. At the same time, state government ballooned by adding almost 35,000 jobs, a staggering increase of 12.3 percent, according to a recent report by the John W. Pope Civitas Institute. “The growth in state government […]
According to the latest Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, an eye-popping 40% of the nation’s voters strongly disapprove of Barack Obama’s performance as President, while only 28% strongly approve of the same. Digging a little deeper, overall, 48% of voters said the at least somewhat approve of the president’s performance; 51% disapprove. In other […]
Possibly right below the badges of Char-Meck police officers and firefighters, if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has his way. Reid, facing an uphill re-election bid in a state rife with union power and sway, is pushing federal legislation that would give public safety workers in North Carolina collective bargaining rights when negotiating for pay […]
Can only assume that he does, or at least not like or appreciate them as much as, say, librarians or social service workers or veterans. While we’re at it, might as well add district attorneys, court clerks and sheriff deputies into the mix, as well. How else to explain Foxx’s wholly irresponsible threat to veto […]
