The budget that the County Commission is poised to approve on Tuesday is not the same budget about which the county held public hearings last year. It also appears that Chairman Charles Bannister plans to exact a little political payback on a fellow Commissioner, but it will be the residents of Commission District 3 who [...]
Joseph Henchman of the Tax Foundation is criticizing a report on the money woes of ten states by the Pew Center. His assessment of California’s problems could apply, in principle, to Gwinnett’s situation:
A big cause of California’s budget crisis was spending commitments derived from overreliance on volatile revenue sources, particularly taxes on high-income earners, [...]
Regarding taxes, government should operate according to the following principles:
Government should be limited to only those services that the people cannot provide for themselves, either individually or through the private sector;
Government should provide those services in the most efficient and economical way possible;
Government should take advantage of every opportunity to fund those [...]
The Albany (GA) city government asked its employees to cut back (read “reduce the cost of government”) in the midst of the economic downturn. They were so successful in reducing spending that the city realized a $720,000 surplus. City manager Al Lott decided that an appropriate use of the extra cash was Christmas bonuses for [...]
A report by the International City/County Management Association indicates that the recession is forcing local governments to change how they do the public’s business:
Local government operations have changed permanently as a result of the recent financial crisis, according to a report from the Washington-based International City/County Management Association (ICMA). What that means, some city and [...]
Gwinnett Daily Post reporter Camie Young touches briefly on an alarming revelation: the County Commission may not spend revenue from the recently-passed tax increase on police officers, fire stations and libraries after all. Instead, the county may apply the funds to the county’s growing accrued liabilities:
The $59 million Gwinnett County will collect next spring during [...]
