Georgetown Budget Tricks

Georgetown uses creative accounting to hide taxes in the most unlikely place on the revenue sheet.

Here is the projected revenue for the General Fund for 2018 which is primarily funded by property and sales taxes, but, not entirely as we shall see.

Now notice the line titled "Return on Investment" which provides $8.4M in revenue.

Now where does that revenue come from? Why it comes from the electric and water companies that Georgetown owns. About $5.6M comes from the electric company and $2.7M comes from the water company.

How do these entities have an extra $8M+ to provide to the Georgetown General Fund? Why they overcharge their customers in excess of their costs. Isn't that convenient?

So if Georgetown wanted revenue of $62M to spend and they didn't have the $8.4M coming from the utilities overcharges, then they would have to raise your property taxes by $8.4M.

Do you see how that creative accounting works. The overcharges for utilities are effectively taxes, but, they are labeled as Return on Investment.