Image Credit: Loudon County, TN Meetings / YouTube
By Susan E. Gingrich [Special to The Tennessee Conservative] –
My recent blog alerted taxpayers to an important meeting of Loudon County Commission. As anticipated and par for the course, few taxpayers attended this meeting where the new budget was presented to commission members not on the budget committee.
Only the new budget wasn’t really presented, just parts of it. There was no agenda for the meeting and no official minutes taken.
No draft budget is on the county’s web site. There is a video of the meeting, but it was edited and about five minutes cut out to remove comments, mostly Commissioner Shaver’s, I believe. Those of us who were there clearly heard him.
The mayor, technically the chairman of the budget committee, but not the commissioner who pulls the strings, lead the discussion. There was no opportunity for the public to comment or ask questions.
I took notes and will summarize it:
• The mayor started by saying that property taxes were the same in the budget.
• There is federal tax dollar ARPA money remaining & to be spent.
• Legal expenditures will be increased almost $100,000.
• New staff are to be hired.
• Current employees, including full and part-time, will receive raises. (Yearly increases occur despite financial circumstances, but favored employees sometimes receive more than others).
• The mayor did not mention costs for employee health benefits, but from a previous meeting I heard that considerable cost increases were included. (My understanding is that as these costs increased, county employees receiving benefits were to also pay more of a share, but this has never happened).
• I believe Commissioner Shaver explained that the reason the almost $200 million expenditure for the new high school and property tax increase were not in the budget was because no one on the budget committee had ever done anything like it before. (I’ve never seen any budget committee do things like they do before either).
• Despite it not being in the budget being presented, the mayor stated that he hoped to not increase property taxes 30 pennies, but hopefully only 25 pennies.
• They talked like the new high school and property tax increase were a done deal, and because Shaver and his church have vested interests in it, it will be passed unless county taxpayers, including Tellico villagers, can stop it.
Of course it wasn’t mentioned during the meeting, but as the driver of the budget committee, when there are budget problems, Shaver routinely takes money from one area and moves it elsewhere.
According to trusted sources, he plans to take money from Sheriff Davis’s department this year. Now I don’t know about you, but I would rather have a safer community than an unneeded high school and property tax increase to pay for it. There appears to be more gang members from multiple gangs relocating here, and the drug problems seem to be escalating just like in the rest of the country.
If you don’t want a property tax increase or a less safe community, you can do something. Get educated by going to a meeting and expressing your opinion, if you are permitted to do so. Governments are greedy and also pretty darn intolerant! Don’t just talk-ACT NOW.
Please share with others, & should you wish a pdf copy, please request it at felinefan@verizon.net
About the Author: Susan E Gingrich MHS., a Commonwealth of PA retiree and founder of Patriots Reborn Network refers to herself as a recovering bureaucrat and proud former public servant. She is a freelance writer and Christian, conservative activist currently living in Loudon, TN with her husband James Shurskis and Cassie and Desi, their senior Birman cats. “If you don’t have a sense of humor and open mind, better to skip my commentary!”.
3 Responses
It came to my attention that Commissioner Shaver, through his gossip web site, is ridiculing me again, because I had an incorrect number in my recent Loudon County related blog. Not being a writer himself, perhaps he doesn’t know the difference between an opinion piece and a news article. My unintentional mistake didn’t harm anyone, but decisions he and other county governmental elected official make, or don’t make, can harm others. People can die, get sicker, lose their homes, be forced to decide between gas, groceries, or paying their taxes, etc.
Would the Hearld publish your piece?