EDITORIAL: Our hats are off to local budget efforts, but are we all really sacrificing equally?
Waco taxpayers should tip their hats to our local elected leaders. While some property values went up enough to ensure higher tax bills for at least some of us, key local governmental bodies largely managed to hold tax rates steady or even decrease them slightly. We appreciate the effort that this undoubtedly took, given that all signs of a robust recovery have fled and some of our residents are suffering.
We’ve celebrated some of the resourcefulness we’ve seen, such as McLennan County commissioners phasing out their sign department — consisting of two positions, both vacant — and transferring those duties, plus a proper pay raise, to the mechanics’ bay as they assume them. There’s likely more of this going on than we know.
Yet we’re also struck by a certain knee-jerk response by some of our elected officials, both conservative and liberal, to automatically provide pay raises with taxpayer money even when times are hard and many taxpayers in the private sector are doing without such pay raises. We notice, for instance, the county insists it’s not giving any pay raises, yet it’s giving “cost-of-living” increases of up to 2 percent.
Balderdash. Many employees in the private sector subsist on hard-won “raises” of 2 percent or so, especially when businesses are struggling. While we’re certainly not opposed to increases in pay for county employees or anyone else whose livelihood is funded through taxes, we find it disingenuous and out of touch with the real world for officials to say they’re doing without pay raises while benefiting from “cost-of-living” increases.
Our point is simple: In hard times, all of us must sacrifice. And sacrifices shouldn’t be limited to the private sector while elected officials are generous with other people’s money. And while we’re at it, let’s thank City Hall for really watching dollars and cents. Rank-and-file employees there are getting nothing in the way of increases, regardless of whether you label it a raise or cost-of-living adjustment.
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