Grand Traverse County Going Broke?

Between restrictions, revenue sharing reductions from state government, a persistent effort to grow certain parts of county government, and past infrastructure mistakes we will be paying for the next several years, Grand Traverse County is seeing red.

Perhaps this isn’t something you have seen in the papers yet..  The 2010-11 Budget has been expanded from being an approved $950,000 deficit, to an approximately $1.7 million deficit.

There is less than $8 million left in reserves.  At this rate, our county has about 4 years before becoming insolvent.

To be sure, there is now an attempt to find new solutions.  But how did we get to this point?  And how can we prevent this from getting worse?

To start with.. we can:

• Do Cost/Benefit analysis to determine whether county programs or actions being proposed actually result in savings or efficiencies and a lower burden on taxpayers.
• Explore privatization of certain county functions.  Private firms tend to be more flexible and creative than the entrenched bureaucracy of governments. It can translate into real savings to the taxpayers.
• Offer Incentives to county employees that produce or suggest significant savings ideas without a loss of service over the previous years for their departments.  No one knows better where the waste is, than our county workers.
• Fight unfunded mandates and directives from state government which create cost for the county and its taxpayers.  Working with our representatives we can avoid being “directed” towards deficits.

There are more solutions than these alone.  Perhaps its time to start the discussion.

You can.. with Jason Gillman.

Become involved, voice your concerns, your suggestions, and be sure to  VOTE Aug 03.