http://66.225.205.104/JR20100616.mp3
A months-long process to finalize cuts in the Mecklenburg County budget ended last night with a partisan vote in front of a sparse audience. Sometime in the last few weeks, the inevitability of the budget seems to have set in. After all the angry emails, the community rallies, the endless outrage over library closures and program cuts, only a handful of people came to see the county commission make its final vote last night. "What this reflects is the most difficult budget I have faced in my three terms," said Chairwoman Jennifer Roberts. The board of county commissioners approved a budget of $1.35 billion for 2011. They made $71 million in cuts, which was less than the $80 million in cuts County Manager Harry Jones originally recommended. Commissioners managed that by taking a more optimistic view of how much sales tax the county will collect next year. Even still, about 300 county workers will lose their jobs and some programs will lose funding entirely. "There are a lot of great programs that got cut out of this budget," said Democrat Dan Murrey. "They perform at a high level. They responded to the measurements we asked them to respond to - they did everything we asked. And yet we had to cut them out of the budget." The toughest funding decisions had already been made by the time commissioners gathered last night. But the prospect of finding a little more cash somewhere in the county's coffers was too much to resist. Commissioners seized on news that interest payments on delinquent taxes are tracking ahead of projections this year. County budget staff told commissioners they had and extra $316,000 to spend. And that's when the bidding war started. Some commissioners felt like the county's parks department deserved the cash. Others wanted funding restored to several nonprofits. The wrangling went on for nearly an hour - all over what Commissioner Harold Cogdell pointed out was barely .2 percent of the total county budget. "We have really descended from policy makers into a new level right now cause we are really talking about an infinitesimal portion of this budget," said Cogdell. They ultimately couldn't agree on how to spend that last $316,000 and ended up just leaving it on the table. But the debate did have the effect of ramping up the political rhetoric as commissioners climbed onto their soap boxes before the final vote. Suddenly they were back to chewing on the same question they faced in March when they first learned the grim budget details: How did we end up here? "These are extraordinary times and they follow several years of rapid growth where we built schools, libraries, parks to meet the needs of our growing population and then faced a global economic crisis," said Roberts. "No doubt the current recession has had a dramatic impact on county revenues, but that is only part of the story," Republican Neil Cooksey fired back. He called the county's budget problems a case of "Democrats gone wild." "The majority on this board have been making promises to the public that it can't keep," continued Cooksey. "The board's free spending ways have not been limited to the operating budget. During the past decade, the county has rarely been presented with a capital project that it did not fund." Indeed, 20 percent of the county's budget is tied up paying the mortgage on new schools, parks and libraries built over the last decade. But it's also true that four Democrats on the current commission are in their first terms and weren't around when those spending decisions were made. Oddly, it was a Republican Bill James, a commissioner notorious for his partisanship, who struck the most conciliatory note of the night. "There's no doubt there was a lot of excess spending going on," said James. "But to be fair, that board's not you all." James went on to compliment his Democratic colleagues on their spending restraint in the current budget. He still voted against it though - mainly because it raises taxes by two and a-half cents on people living in unincorporated areas to pay for police service. So, the final vote on the 2011 county budget fell exactly along party lines: Democrats for it, Republicans against. Now all nine commissioners turn their attention toward for re-election this fall and hope the difficult budget choices they made don't come back to haunt them.