More Spending is Not the Answer

As is usual for "progressive" politicians, they always focus on the needs for more spending, not on opportunities to reduce spending. Texas House Speaker, Joe Straus is already trying to condition the public to accept more spending for foster care, public schools and retired teacher's health care.(Straus)

The exact same thing goes on at the local level. Our City Council focuses on high visibility capital projects, that require more debt, rather than reducing regulations and fees imposed on the citizens.

For instance, did you know that the city receives 20% of its revenue from Return on Investment, or ROI? What is ROI? Most forms of ROI compare returns to costs by calculating a ratio or percentage. Usually, a result greater than 0 means that returns exceed costs, while a negative value mean that costs outweigh returns.  Some would say a value greater than zero represents a profit.

The question is: Should the city be generating a profit on some services or investments in order to fund other activities? It would seem that a proper goal would be for the city to break-even on each service in order to provide the lowest cost to each consumer of city services.

The budget cycle is starting for FY 2017 with staff presentations to the council at their workshop on April 26, 2016.

Contact your council representatives to give them your thoughts and recommendations as the budget development proceeds.