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6/25/2007
Blinders don't make for good budgets
One priority for counties is NOT nursing homes – which I’ve written about a number of times here. (You can search the FoxPolitics.net web site for “nursing home.” The “blogs” articles are mine, the others are news links from around the state.)
In a meeting last week, opponents of the sale of the Manitowoc County Health Care Center (HCC) sale used a new tactic – blinders.
Todd Reckelberg, County Comptroller, was very specific as to what programs and employees would have to be scaled back in 2008 if monies had to be made available to continue funding the deficit at HCC.
[This makes me think of Sheboygan County’s terrific benefit analysis process. They identified 207 programs in the county, then ranked them based on very specific criteria. It’s great stuff for effective prioritizing and decision-making for public sector budgeting.]
Reckelberg listed very specific programs that will be affected if HCC is not sold and its deficit must continue to be supported by county taxpayers. As Reckelberg acknowledged, program priorities are county board decisions, and his list is simply an illustration of what would have to be given up if a Supervisor doesn’t want to approve going ahead with the sale.
Eliminate UW Extension (including 4-H), $351,483; eliminate all activity in parks $53,777; eliminate Expo operations, including the fair and ice center $24,700; eliminate 17 FTE’s from 19 different departments, $789,833; and lastly, find another $780,207 somewhere to total $2,000,000 to fund the projected HCC deficit of $2,000,000.
And Reckelberg used the opportunity to list important (critical?) new budget items proposed for 2008 to the tune of another $882,324. So the dollars that somehow need to be found total about $2.9M. Wow.
So what do opponents of selling HCC say?
They say the county is in good financial health and essentially, don’t believe Reckelberg’s reckonings. Blinders. It’s kind of the same thing when fiscal conservatives (well, and others) say they can reduce spending by reining in abuse and inefficiencies. Ok, there might be some of that. But in this case, there’s surely not $2.9M worth.
State and local budgeters and taxpayers and tax-spenders take note: When you’ve got a deficit (and especially when you can’t raise taxes), you’ve got to come to grips with it – and something’s got to give.
Blinders and denial don’t work. $2,900,000 county budget holes require serious actions and policy changes (so do $1.7 billion state budget holes!) County Executive Ziegelbauer’s proposal to sell HCC is well-reasoned, and I’m sure, didn’t come without a great deal of research and hand wringing. It’s the hard truth. No magic, no smoke and mirrors. No excuses. No politicizing the situation. Something must be done. It’s time to make choices. And this time, as many counties have, it’s time to sell the county nursing home to a qualified, quality private operator.
COMMENTS
RE: UW Extension. Who really needs it? 4H should operate on its own like Scouts and Boys and Girls Club. And provides services to farmers which they should pay for. But is sacred cow in most counties.
Ok Jim, so that could go. Would you try to find additional program cuts to continue running a county nursing home? JE
Jim Smits (Mon Jun 25 08:52:46 2007)
Without going into the argument that there has been enough privatization of everything already (and I'm surprised the old phrase "Let George do it" is rarely mentioned in the shirking of responsibility) there is no mention of the revenue stream here from the residents but description of cost only.
Cost Benefit analysis is something automakers do to figure how cheaply and unsafely they can make a vehicle against the lawsuits they will have to pay out over the life of the production run.
Where people's lives and well-being are at stake this sort of thinking is not only short sighted, it is cruel to boot.
Lon Ponschock (Mon Jun 25 13:59:49 2007)
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