Paying the Price for Fiscal Restraint

Today's Gazette had a front page article "Court Dates Loom in Library Fight" (Sorry no link to the article) about the library board of trustees taking the city to State Supreme Court over funding $93,891.

"We did not order books as we normally would have ordered books because we did not want to extend ourselves in this time of uncertainty." So said Trustee Hamilton. Wow fiscal restraint by a government entity, impressive!

and the ball goes over the net

"The basic thing was that the court said to continue paying their bills, and we paid all of their bills that occurred during the year" Assistant city corporate counsel O'Donnell said.

So you put the two together and you get something like this:

We paid the bills they made, it's not our fault they didn't spend like the rest of the city. They should know better then to be fiscally responsible with taxpayer money. After all who the hell do they think they are, it's not like it's their money.

Now several rants pop into this small angry brain of mine after reading the whole article. My last post "Or when you hit a pothole or hear how the library must cut back hours, remember what great prices are at the bocce courts."

A new government intity with the power to tax (or create a new one) Several former and current trustees have stated that the only way to stabalize the library's finances would be to create a special district library that would operate apart from the city and would be funded through a separate tax. Oh yes that's what we need! Though the trustees seem to be the responsible spenders in the city. Why not let them run the whole city.

Hamilton said the library's budget falls victim to other city services like police and fire when money is tight and "public safety funding is a fear that best plays with the people." Now why did he go and say that, what about all the wasteful spending in the city, the funded pipe dreams that fail and on and on, geez, why do they always blame the two most important things for the problems. Is the waste like the half brother chained in the basement nobody wants to talk about. So everyone talks about the A student?