Yesterday we celebrated the July 4th holiday and noted the people living on this continent have a long, long history of getting riled up over taxes.
One way to keep taxes from rising along with other costs of living while still providing services for the public good is through sound fiscal management of all public funds.
How can you tell whether sound fiscal management is being provided in Christiansburg? Until this year, council provided no public budget work sessions. Unlike most other localities throughout Virginia, Christiansburg citizens cannot find past or current budgets at the town's website. The budget that was provided to council members does not clearly show the number of employees (typically, any organization's largest expense item), or categorized costs such as advertising/promotion, insurance or fuel as examples.
A story about what area governments are doing to manage rising fuel costs, a necessary line-item expense which burns up tax dollars, is featured in today's Roanoke Times Current and a few things jump right out at readers.
First, only two localities and two smaller public school systems are showing any increases for fuel costs in their budgets. The other five government budgets show reductions to fuel related expenses, even though all these budgets were prepared when rising gasoline costs were clearly expected.
As reported, it looks like Christiansburg's fuel bill is budgeted as being 43% higher than last fiscal year, jumping from $325,000 to $465,000.
Second, the news article then stated "The town was unable to provide actual gas expenses. Figures shown are the street department equipment operation and repair budget, which includes fuel, tires, repairs and other vehicle expenses."
Yoiks! You mean a 43% increase still doesn't cover all the town's gasoline bills? Why couldn't actual gasoline expenses be provided for staff vehicles and the police department and so forth?
Third, the news article goes on to highlight some of the steps being taken to control rising gasoline costs by the various local governments. This is nice, as there may be ideas which can be replicated -- and there is a saying that when someone takes what you're doing and copies it, consider this a compliment.
The cost cutters listed for Christiansburg came straight from Christiansburg PetPeeves, whose author made the same statements during several council meetings. Was town administration already considering these measures, or is it that they simply cannot see other means to control costs for this one line-item?
This brings us back to the need for a better budget process with improved tracking and presentation of fiscal information. How can citizens trust that town council will effectively maximize the use of existing tax dollars, when even these elected officials cannot see where the money goes?
Otherwise, citizens may wonder whether their tax dollars are evaporating into thin air, like gasoline fumes.