Governor’s charade makes city, county government the fall guy

The governor has demonstrated once again that he apparently doesn’t understand how local governments work, what their purpose is, how their budgets are established, and how the decisions about revenues and expenditures are decided.

He seems to be following closely in the footsteps of House Speaker Glenn Richardson, who proved last year, without any doubt, that he doesn’t understand or have a regard for local governments, nor does he care to.

The mayor of Atlanta gets hammered for a shortfall in revenue and she is vilified. But now, less than four months after the governor signs his approval of the state budget, his revenue estimates are off by almost $2 billion. That’s billion with a B, and there is no outcry.

It looks to me like someone should ask how that happened. Was the economy not in trouble in March? Should not the buck stop at the governor’s desk? But then the governor says it’s not his fault; it’s those incompetent city and county folks who have messed everything up.

The administration’s strategy has become very clear. Although I’m a little slow, it has now become obvious even to me. They begin to cut, not their expenditures, but the funds they direct to local governments.

The focus of those cuts in the last few years has been education, but beginning last year they shifted their focus to all local governments.

Case in point: Funds they were collecting and returning to our citizens under the homeowner tax relief grant program are now being withheld, forcing local governments to either cut more expenses or increase revenues with a tax increase.

How does this work? They cut state funds to education. Then when we, as a community, decide we want to keep our Spanish classes or music and arts or whatever, and decide to raise our taxes to compensate for the shortfall, they point the finger at us and announce our budgets are out of control.

We are accused of incompetence concerning managing or deciding how we should spend our money. As the governor stated, local governments “have never approached it from the standpoint that they have to tighten their belts.”

I invite the governor to come to my community, stand in front of our citizens and tell us we don’t know how to manage our budget.

We carefully plan our budgets every year and make hard choices, in front of citizens, about cuts and tax increases. If we get out of alignment with our constituents, there are two opportunities every month at our council meetings, and an election every other year, for us as citizens to straighten it out. And we can’t hide in China or on a plane to Spain. Our mayor’s office is out on the street corner.

So I ask the governor to work with us, not blame us. The solutions to our problems are not under the Gold Dome, they are out here on the streets with us. I ask the governor to join us in Decatur for a forum to address this divisive approach.

Let’s talk, not point fingers.

Bill Floyd is in his ninth year as mayor of Decatur and his 17th year as a member of the City Council.