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Monday
February 2010
8
Community Blogs
Brown Deer Trustees do the Village Board Tax Shuffle
The "Village Board Tax Shuffle" is a very popular dance that the Brown Deer Village Board Trustees are starting to swing to. It is a dance I have seen performed in other communities, including Shorewood, where I presently reside.
It works like this:
1) Taxpayers say ENOUGH --- can't you guys find some place to cut expenses, instead of raising taxes ?
2) The Village Board Members think the Taxpayers may really be serious this time.
3) Looking through the Village Trustee "Secret" Handbook -- in the Troubleshooting Section, they find that action is called for ---
the Handbook advises that if "you can't dazzle them with results, baffle them with bull"
4) Now that there is an outline to work from, the Village Trustees look for ways in which to cut THEIR budget --- so they can tell their Constituents that they have HELD THE LINE ON SPENDING!!
5) The most difficult part of the dance is the delicate flair that is called for at the end of the shuffle. With the grace of a professional ballroom dancer, the Board has to carefully mask the true consequences for the Taxpayers -- a few twirls and spins -- perhaps a little glitzy soft shoe, and with some luck, the Trustees may just pull it off, and leave the stage to resounding applause!
BUT -- unfortunately for the Board of Trustees, Taxpayers have seen this dance too many times before, and they realize what is really happening.
The Brown Deer Board stops paying for Crossing Guards for the School District. claiming a Savings of a Whopping $17,300 .............. ONLY there are NO SAVINGS! The same taxpayers are still paying for Crossing Guards .... and now they actually could be paying MORE for the same services.
The Village has a police force administration in place which has the expertise to oversee and manage Crossing Guards ....... will the School District now have to pay more as they become responsible for the administration of this Village Safety Issue.
The Village Trustees can now also claim that they cut another $39,000 from the Village Budget by charging the School District for Trash Removal --- SO WHAT --- the same Taxpayers are still going to pay the costs --- only they will pay it to the School District and not the Village.
Shuffle on and on and on .............. Don't find Real Savings --- just shift the costs to another venue for the Taxpayers to pay.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ? YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME !
The root of the problem is that everyone is feeling the pinch financially during this recession, but that doesn't mean that the costs of running local services goes down...
The majority of local taxes (school, village) goes to pay for the salaries and benefits of the people providing the services, and thus short of cutting services, taxes CAN'T go down, much as people would like them to (myself included - but I'm realistically understanding forces behind the issue). Side-note, most of these employees have union contracts, so asking them to take a pay cut like my non-union employment situation is difficult, and realistically un-attainable.
This also comes out of the battle between local and state funding. Many vocal Brown Deer residents fought the school board on not raising the taxes this year (final resolution, 2.8% raise approved)... those who are angry about the situation see their property tax levy going up by 2.8%, but at the same time, the school had to CUT the budget by over $1,000,000 due to less money coming from state support to meet 'only' a 3% increase.
The shuffle is an unfortunate side-affect of people showing they are indeed looking at everything and trying to resolve the issue as best they can, and again since state funding is a significant portion of school funding, much is simply outside of local officials' hands.
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Tags: Brown Deer : Village Board Trustees : Taxpayer Shuffle : Taxes : Taxpayers : School District
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