Open Your Pockets Just A Little More!

So! An "error" made by the Idaho State Tax Commission is going to cost those in the City of Mountain Home an extra $116.00 per $100,000 of taxable, assessed valuation. This "error" will impact nearly 6,999 parcels of land to the tune of approximately $674,000 (give or take a little due to other factors). Seems like someone at the state level should have missed that chunk of change given the budget issues and all. Kind of makes a person wonder what else they have missed or made "errors" on. It also makes a person wonder what will happen to the people who made the "error" in the first place. If the shoe were on the other foot there would be fines and a hefty penalty. What is being done to make sure this problem does not happen again? Is anyone held accountable these days?

School budget woes! We need to cut our local school budget by a reported $300,000! Wow. How do we cut something that has been reported to be cut nearly to the bone already? Tough one. However, did the high school really need that new phone system that few really know how to use? Was this a "need" or a "want" by a district that had some "extra" money available at the time? I attended the bond hearings. You seemed to have plenty of money then. Many of us at those hearings said tough times were on the horizon and that things should be scaled down a bit. You folks at the district level who make the big bucks were sure you knew better no matter how much the people told you there was just too much spending going on. Given the situation (reduced number of students, reduced funding, etc.) I guess most of us are pretty happy that the bond failed given the current situation of things (NOT that improvements were not needed mind you).

Now this same school district will call upon the taxpayers to bail them out of the mess that they are in. No vote is needed for this levy since an emergency has been declared. The big question is what are you doing with all of OUR tax dollars. What is all of this money being spent on when we have children who cannot take books home because there are not enough books? Where is all of this money going? Do you truly need more money or is this just a case of spending too much? I myself would like to see how each and every dime has been spent over the last few years. Given the economic state, jobs, etc., most taxpayers are stretched to the limit already. Asking for more money without proof of how monies have been spent to date will not fly with the public. I for one hope you will come prepared as this public hearing approaches. In the end, you can do what you want and will do what you want. However, you (the MHSD Board and district "managers") are still accountable to the public and really need to explain where all of this money has gone. If you want the public to help you, you need to be willing to provide us, the public, with factual, truthful information as opposed to the other stuff you seem to come up with. We will have our facts together. Will you?

Pest Abatement District. I was at the pest abatement meeting a little while back and that was interesting, to say the least. First off, I need to say that those who provide this service (set the traps, collect the traps, do area checks, spray, etc) ARE GREAT! I cannot even begin to say what a great job all of you did last year.

However...on the governmental level...there are some problems (in my opinion and based on the following facts). First, the budget for 2010 was approved without ANY numbers available with respect to what was spent last year. These people came to a meeting without the information from the prior year. When asked what was spent the best they could say was they spent 1/2 of what they had budgeted. So, if you folks spent 1/2 of what was budgeted and got the results you wanted why CONTINUE to tax at the same rate when you can do an OUTSTANDING job with far less? The ECC's approved a $144,000 budget when only 1/2 of that was needed for abatement. How does the public like that one?!?!

I talked to the Pest Abatement Board and the ECC's at this meeting. I asked why they insisted on spending every dime if they could do with less and get the job done (even hold a set amount back in case something came up). I brought up the school issue and more money being needed for that. I brought up the WECRD and how we could do without that tax certainly at least for this year. The ECC's were pretty proud of that fact that no county employees have been laid off. No raises were given (due to funding) but everyone has kept their jobs. Wow! That is better than 90% of our country is doing. However, maybe that is also part of the problem here. Maybe we are a bit top heavy. Well, county government continues to grow! Instead of contracting the abatement services like they did last year, the ECC's (all 3 of them) voted to purchase equipment and hire people to do what was done VERY WELL through a contract. Why must we try to "fix" what is not broken?

Well, it is called too much money and too much waste and no sense. The ECC's talked about how hardly anybody goes to their meetings to give input. The hard truth of the matter is that regardless of public input, no matter how valid it is, YOU (the ECC's) do what you want. Why would people want to waste their time at your meetings while they could be working to support more taxes and needless spending at the hands of our wonderful elected officials. You passed the buck on the nuclear plant after months of wasting not only the public's time but also AEHI's time. So really, why would people want to waste their time to give YOU (the ECC's) input? Why?

The end result is always the same. You all do what you want regardless of how the public feels. You change the rules to fit your agendas/game plan. I guess come election time we will see how that works for you. All three of you seem to forget that you work FOR the people. Your job is to protect the people of this community and the community itself. Why does the public seem to forget this and settle for less?

I hope at election time we remember all of the above. Why settle? If we as taxpayers are being forced to cut back why is our local, county Government still spending so much when they can do the same job with less and still get great results?