Budget Transparency Needed

As we reach the warm months local governments begin to craft budgets for the coming fiscal year.

In these increasingly difficult economic times, that means it is particularly essential that elected officials are transparent in how they are intending to spend hard-earned taxpayer money.

The federal government spent much of the initial TARP fund on banks and AIG and the like and how that worked remains as muddled as a river at flood stage.

Despite whining about multi-billion dollar deficits, state lawmakers have still found opportunity to stuff so-called "turkeys," pork projects for back home that did not go through the typical budgeting process, into the budget.

And, here in Gulf County, it is surprising there weren't some of those tea parties held around the country in what some called a Republican stunt and others a reflection of the depth of anger taxpayers feel over how government takes and spends their money.

In the City of Port St. Joe, for example, town hall meetings, regular meetings and workshops have revealed that at the very least commissioners themselves are not in total agreement or understanding of where the money is going or has gone.

What is evident is that accounting for every dollar has been something of an inexact science for those charged with doing just that, one reason that the city in the past six to eight months has secured one short-term seven-figure loan and is considering another.

And at the center of the argument over county-wide voting is a perception, accurate or not, that commissioners are more interested in what's-in-it-for-me-and-my-district approach to spending than any holistic reasoning or accounting procedures.

There are the conflicts, evidenced by one commissioner's frequent golf games in Panama City Beach - spending locally is the motto, remember - on the dime of a major contractor doing business with the county, a contractor it should not noted is located out of the county and employs primarily out of the county.

So much for that local preference rigmarole that commissioners have twisted like a rubber band.

Another commissioner is a vendor for the county, his downtown business supported in significant part by county taxpayer dollars.

The chairman wants to consolidate operations, but thinks nothing about consolidating the county through the elimination of single-member districts and the fiefdoms the real estate run-up allowed commissioners to create.

And another commissioner who treats with open disdain issues, and expenditures of money, that occur south of the White City Bridge.

What taxpayers also see are county commissioners who did precisely what many begged them not to do during budget seasons in 2003 and 2004 - kill the golden goose.

No, commissioners are not responsible for bursting the housing balloon they rode to fill coffers with money for pet projects and build their parks and fiefdoms, but there is little question taxing levels, a direct result of binge spending, dampened economic development and forced businesses and individual property owners to flee the county.

There was no saving for a rainy day, no accountability of how dollars were spent, no fallback scenarios for what to do when belts must be tightened, just another segment of the arc in which taxpayers, in thin times or flush, bear the burden of a conflicted, irresponsible county government.

The wonder is - where was the tea party in Gulf County last week?