Lehigh County Budget Woes

Lehigh County Commissioners want Lehigh County executive Tom Muller to come up with about $14 million in spending cuts in the upcoming budget for 2015.

Mueller in his state of the county address said on Thursday, February 27th, 2014, "Tell me what you no longer want the county to do".

Predictably this set off a brouhaha in the comments left at both the local media and on blogs. Most of them personal and politically motivated attacks having nothing to do with Lehigh County's budget problem. Why should they when the players themselves blow hot air along with the best of them?

Back on May 11th, 2011 South Whitehall Patch ran a "Meet the Candidates" series in which when asked what...Lisa Scheller would have cut from the 2011 county spending plan to avoid the tax increase, she offered no specific reductions

Vic Mazziotti said,"I’ve been around budgets long enough to know there’s always something to cut."

Scott Ott said, "That's the executive's responsibility,"Here we are folks over two years later and they still ain't got nuthin'. This bunch is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

Well I have a few things for you to think about
In 2012 Lehigh County gave a one time tax credit of $4.4 million to homeowners. Then mixed, stirred, repeated and gave another $3.5 million in 2013. That's almost eight million buck$ right there they could have had in their stash. In 2014 there are no tax credits in the budget for homeowners.

Imagine how pleased homeowners' will be when they learn of a increase not only by the elimination of the tax credit they enjoyed over the last two years but also a who knows how much more of a increase in their taxes this time around.

Currently Lehigh County receives $105.804 million from taxes. Lehigh County gets the rest from grants and reimbursements, departmental earnings, judicial costs and fines, investment income and so forth. Since county can't readily change the income from those sources, the commissioners requested $14 million would most probably be expected to come from taxes to homeowners. That translates to roughly a 14% increase (if unable to make further cuts).

Cedarbrook makes up 18% of the 2014 budget (about $10 million). I suspect this issue will be broached. The temptation may be too hard to resist for politicians looking for low hanging fruit.

The Purpose Of this post
To point out the commissioners along with the rabid commenters alike are trying to take a poke at one another. Neither of which are offering solutions.

Both are playing this asinine game of personal attacks and political one-upmanship while the ship continues to sink. It's like two drowning people who can't swim holding onto each other.
     WHERE ARE THE SOLUTIONS FOLKS!