Value for your tax dollar

Citizens interested in Huber Heights City Council

Succeeding in Huber Heights

Value for your tax dollar

I consider myself a fiscal conservative. If I am going to spend money I like to know I have a reasonable chance of getting good value from the expenditure. There is another aspect beyond value that goes into an expenditure decision, are the funds available. The two things I want to address here are necessity and revenues.

In general I, like most other people, desire the lowest possible tax rates and fees that can provide a service. Minimizing tax and fee rates will be one of the top considerations in my decision making process. Working against the top consideration is that I believe in some of the luxuries we get from the city. For instance Thomas Cloud is a great asset worth the application of some city funds. Even though I’ve gone to recycling leaves back into my own property I like the curbside pick-up of leaves in the fall.

My one giant pet peeve is the practice of spending money just because if a department doesn’t the money will go back into the public coffers and someone else will get it next year. I don’t have any idea how much this goes on within each of the departments in the city but I know it is a common management philosophy through-out government and to some extent industry. In these financial times, I’m going to want to see departments turning in unexpended funds to the city. I also believe this is the right thing to do when the money comes from the State or Federal government. I don’t want to see departments putting flat screen TV’s in every hallway of their buildings just because they think it is a better management tool than one that tells them to send the money back to the funding agency.