To the editor: Tuesday’s article on the Habersham County budget shows how our county leadership fails “Leadership 101.” I wonder if it crossed their minds that “their tax estimate” might have been wrong and what came in was the actual?
We all know – for a fact – that all estimates tend to be high. It’s just the nature of things. Please don’t blame the Tax Assessor Board for doing their job. It is the leadership that failed by their own assessment. It would be nice if I could decide what income monies are due me and get mad when my employer does not agree or worse yet, does not have the money to pay me.
We would all like to have an unlimited income to spend, I know I would. However, in the real world, we should only spend what we have. The county is no exception.
Sure, there are a lot of things the county should have or do, and there are a LOT of things the county has to do. The rule of “budgeting” says, put money in the budget for what you have to do, and monies left over can go toward things that would be nice to do if we had the money.
That is the way all of us regular folks live, and the county is made up of regular folks, so the county should live by the same standard of us regular folks who are footing the bill. It is wrong for the county leadership to decide on their own that they can wring out tax dollars from their constituents according to their own assessment.
The county must live like the rest of us. We do what we can with the dollars we get and save up for the other things that we don’t have the money for. Yep! That does mean that some things won’t get done until we get the money to do it. Welcome to the real world.
They should “plan” like the rest of us. Use last year’s budget to work from for this year. If we get more – great! You can apply the extra to some of the “want” projects. The rest will just have to wait.
If I have to live that way, don’t you think the County should too? Just saying.
JT King
Mt. Airy