OPINION — In its simplest terms, the city of St. George came up a few million dollars short in their latest budget, so they are proposing an increase in property taxes to account for the deficit. Sounds like normal operating procedure for a blue city in a blue state. But this is St. George, and our City Council is shamelessly using our first responders as pawns to tax the citizens, rather than make uncomfortable cuts elsewhere.
The St. George city budget is just over $500 million. If you eliminate the budget noise and focus only on the city’s General Fund, it is still about $100 million. The citizens were informed at a recent City Council meeting that their all-knowing budget gurus are about 3% short in the general fund to continue city operations and enhance our police and fire departments with well-needed increased salaries, hiring, et cetera, through the Safe St. George program. For the record, I support the Safe St. George initiative, and you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in our city who truly believes we should not invest in our police and fire.
So why the controversy? Our city leaders are using our police and fire departments as pawns to increase property taxes by twisting the budget presentation from the perspective that if we don’t increase taxes, we will not be able to support the Safe St. George initiative.
The problem is they presented everything in the budget as essential and then dropped in the Safe St. George initiative as an “add on” under the premise that we cannot improve police and fire protection without a tax increase. I believe that this process is backwards and deceiving.
If the Safe St. George initiative is that important, then put it in the budget first and lock it in. Make it untouchable. Ideally, you would then reduce the budget in other areas enough to support the Safe St. George initiative and have a balanced budget.
Is it too much to ask our city leadership to reduce the operating budget by a simple 3% to accommodate this important initiative? If the citizens of St. George can tighten their belts to survive one of the most chaotic financial environments in many of our lifetimes, I would expect our city leadership to take charge and make the necessary and uncomfortable cuts to balance the budget without increasing the financial burden on the citizens by raising property taxes.
A mentor of mine once shared with me that politics is local. Citizens of St. George – open your eyes and take a good look at what’s happening in City Hall. If you challenge the tax increase, you are anti-police. If you are a member of the City Council and you challenge the status quo, you are dragged through the dirt publicly and privately. You can’t even clap at a St. George City Council meeting without being barked at.
Voting has consequences is not a cliché. We are at ground zero, my friends. Watch your six.
Submitted by RON WOODBURY, St. George.
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