If you want to know why local Progressive budgets are spinning out of control, then consider the tale of the Carrboro town clerk, Ms. Sarah Williamson. She has served as town clerk for Carrboro for 38 years. She knows where all the figurative bodies are buried from the corrupt, but legal practices that have filled Carrboro town hall for decades.

For FY 2008-2009, the town of Carrboro lists Ms. Williamson’s personnel expense as $101,712. That’s not bad compensation for someone without a collegiate degree. She has chosen to retire at the end of this fiscal year, June 30th. But she’s not really retiring from her town clerk position.

What? That’s right, she’s retiring from the town clerk position so she can collect her pension, one that is equivalent to her having saved and invested millions of dollars from her town salary over the past 38 years. (Talk about unsustainable business practices! See the full impending disaster story in the Atlantic.) But, after taking a five week vacation, she’s being hired back to be, you're so good you guessed it again, the town clerk.

By unanimous consent, the Carrboro governance board voted to hire Ms. Williamson to fulfill the position of town clerk at $46.00 per hour for 22.5 hours per week until 30 November 2010. That’s equal to a full time salary of $92,000 per year.

Which begs the question, if Ms. Williamson can professionally fulfill the non-strenuous position of town clerk in just 22.5 hours per week as a contractor, then why has the town of Carrboro paid her for 40 hours per week for decades?

You would think that a Progressive town manager would use a phrase like “hold the line” to talk about steady tax burdens on residents during the Great Recession and not use the smoke and mirrors of tax rates to hide spending increases. You would think that an increase of 29.1% in town staff salaries and wages since 2004 would not be considered by Progressives to be ”holding the line”. You would think that a Progressive town governance board and staff wouldn't hide behind the state's “revenue neutral” reassessment laws that allow a town to increase your property taxes and declare them “revenue neutral”. You would be wrong.

The headlines read, the upcoming Carrboro budget will “stay the course”. What course are we talking about here? Are Carrburbans being considered the main course by town staff? Town manager Steve Stewart positively was beaming, Carrboro “has held the line on property taxes” for five out of the last eight years. Really? Are we talking about Carrboro? Are we talking about the tax burden on a Carrboro resident or about the property tax rates? Did your tax bill remain the same for five out of the last eight years? No???

Woah! Pulpsters know better than to trust local Progessive town staffers opining on fiscal reality. If facts aren't optional for you, then let's trip over to the State Treasurer’s office and see what's what.

Carrboro property tax revenues increased from 2004 to 2009 by 38.9%. (Tax revenues are NOT tax rates, they are the booty the town extracts from you.) Not for one year did the Carrboro tax revenues hold the line. On a per capita basis, property taxes increased 25.5%. Did your income increase that much in the last five years? Do you think the town has “held the line”?

What about Carrboro’s spending on town employee salaries and wages? They increased 29.1% from 2004 to 2009. On a per capita basis they increased 16.4%. Did your income increase that much in the last five years? Do you think the town has “held the line”?

Unlike local Progressives, fiscal conservatives remember that debt is an important component of financing profligate spending. Carrboro debt service increased 27.7% from 2004 to 2009. On a per capita basis it increased 14.1%. Your debt service probably exceeded that. After all, you have to pay for the town debt service. It’s called increasing town taxes.

Let’s compare what happened with Carrboro to similar towns grouped together by the State Treasurer.

In 2009, Carrboro residents paid 36.3% more in property taxes on a per capita basis than the group average. From 2004 to 2009 Carrboro property taxes on a per capita basis increased 47.9% more compared to the group average increase. Do you think the town has “held the line”?

In 2009, Carrboro residents paid 10.7% more in for town staff salaries and wages on a per capita basis than the group average. From 2004 to 2009 Carrboro salaries and wages on a per capita basis increased 54.8 % more compared to the group average increase. Do you think the town has “held the line”?

What about Carrboro sales tax revenues? Those revenues increased from 2004 to 2009 by only 6.8%. They didn’t even keep pace with inflation. Of course,if you turn your back on Costco and a super Harris Teeter you will won't see any sales tax increases. On a per capita basis they actually fell by 3.3%. Do you think the town elected officials and their staff should be treated with more respect for this negative performance?

Now let’s trip down Carrboro memory lane. Neither the Carrboro governance board nor the town staff ever do, so it'll be a pretty lonely ride. In 2004, Carrboro forecast harvesting over $600,000 a year in new taxes from the Northeast Annexation. To date, it spent but a fraction of those taxes on services for the annexees, clearing over $400,000 annually. Did the town elected officials and town staff use those annexation profits to pay for the Carrboro fire substation? No. Could the fire substation have been paid for by now? Not quite, but almost. Instead, Carrboro’s elected officials spent the money on hiding what the true Carrboro tax rates would be today. How else could they get you to pay for their cumulative 29.1% increase in town staff salaries & wages?

Over five years later, those annexees still don’t have regular Carrboro fire service. They have the same service they had before being annexed. Over five years later, those annexees travel on roads not annexed by Carrboro. They crumble despite Alderman Jacquie Gist’s public admonition of years ago to stop complaining, “We’ll annex your roads!”.

According to Alderman Dan Coleman, town staff is doing ”a good job”. According to Alderman Gist, Pulpsters should look at Carrboro ”with more respect and not for comic relief”.

More respect for ”holding the line” with a 38.9% property tax revenues increase, a 27.7% debt service increase, and a 6.8% sales tax revenue increase that was actually lower on a per capita basis? More respect for hiding property tax rate increases behind the property reassessment “revenue neutral” laws? Just as soon as you stop laughing!

Apparently, none of the Progressive municipal governance boards have bothered to tell OWASA that a Great Recession is wracking the national and state economies. On 27 May 2010, OWASA’s Board of Directors is holding a public hearing to approve a 9.25% increase in monthly rates. This almost double digit increase is on top of last year’s increase of 9.75%. That’s an average basic annual increase for a typical residential bill of about $170 in just the last two years.

What gives? Why is OWASA water so expensive? According to OWASA, the primary reasons for the proposed rate increase are lower drinking water sales, reduced connection fee revenues from new development, and the need to renew and replace aging infrastructure.

OWASA didn’t emphasize the 8% increase in healthcare costs that are being placed onto you bill. Apparently, no effort is being made to align OWASA employee healthcare contributions with those in small business. OWASA also didn’t emphasize the 30% increase in OWASA contributions to OWASA employee pension benefits. Finally, OWASA didn’t emphasize OWASA employee merit salary increases of 2.5% of OWASA payroll. (See OWASA Explanation.)

OWASA has a lot of questions to answer. Why didn’t it know that its customers would reduce their water usage by 25% over the last decade, particularly as the residential customer base grew? Why didn’t OWASA anticipate the massive reduction in the UNC water usage and adjust rates years ago BEFORE UNC would escape paying its fair share for the OWASA infrastructure? Where is the infrastructure aging, and why are all customers paying equally for this aging infrastructure?

Expect those answers when OWASA answers why it used capital revenues for years to offset operational expenses, offering UNC unrealistically low water rates. Remember, it what’s in the water that makes it golden.

You would think that Progressives would want you to know exactly how your town compares to others in spending your taxes. You would think that they would not engage in political prestidigitation, conflating tax rates with tax burdens. You would think that they would be proud of spending more money on town employees per capita and receiving less sales tax moneys per capita than all those nasty non-Progressive towns. You would be wrong.

With the coming of May comes the presentation of municipal budgets. Here in Orange County there’s also a noticeable uptick in the consumption of analgesics as pollen headaches turn into political headaches. The town of Chapel Hill has lead off the festivities unveiling its FY 2010-2011 budget. In a word, the recommended budget is “profligate” considering the continuing Great Recession. You guessed it. They just couldn’t freeze their spending.

The general fund budget is $52.6 million. Tax rate increases were avoided by funding the 5.6 percent increase by raiding the rainy day accumulated reserve funds of about $2,270,000. An additional $3,000,000 came from delaying equipment replacement, postponing hirings, and reducing transit service.

Although there will be no “salary increases”, there will be “adjustments”. The town will shower $453,204 for one-time salary adjustments.

The good news for those pesky fiscal conservatives is that, finally, town employees will get a taste of what’s been happening in the private sector to healthcare costs. Employees will pay more 13.9 percent more for employee-family coverage plans. That’s a dreaded monthly increase of between $29 and $59. In addition, co-pays will be increased.

In an effort to put a good face on a bad financial situation, Town Manager Roger Stancil crowed about Chapel Hill having a tax rate in the lowest third of comparable cities in North Carolina. He talked about having tax rates ”lower than High Point, Burlington, Carrboro, Rocky Mount, Durham, Gastonia, Greenville and Wilson”.

Pulpsters know that comparing tax rates is meaningless. It’s the tax burden, how much money you pay per person, that counts. Towns with higher assessed values (like Chapel Hill) can collect far more money with a “lower rate” than can an equivalent town with a lower average assessed value.

The following table belies Mr. Stancil’s smoke and mirrors.

• - “Group Average” refers to all North Carolina towns having a population greater than 50,000 and no municipal electrical utilities

Notice how Chapel Hill may have a lower tax rate than Durham, but each Chapel Hill resident pays 20% more in property taxes.

Don’t even look at Gastonia. Although it spends 14% more per Gastonia resident in town employee wages and salaries, it touches each resident 67% less for property taxes than Chapel Hill shakes down its residents. Oh, but Chapel Hill does have a lower tax rate than Gastonia!

On Tuesday 4 May 2010, UNC Chancellor Thorp demonstrated the smart way to handle Progressive agitators crying for no more coal burning at UNC Chapel Hill. Give them what they want. Just use technological sleight of hand to replace what you were doing with something just as bad.

With the national director of the Sierra Club’s coal campaign ready to be played like a goob, Chancellor Holden Thorp announced that the UNC-CH would end its use of coal by 2020. “Universities must lead the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy. Today, Carolina takes another big step in that direction. Carolina is proud to be a national leader in sustainability in American higher education. Our systems for energy efficiency, cogeneration of electricity and steam, waste recycling, green building, mass transit and water conservation are models. We are in an unusual position because our cogeneration plant has a useful life of another 30 to 40 years. It’s not going to be easy to make this transition. We have challenges in making sure biomass will work in our existing boilers and challenges on the supply side as well. But we are confident we can achieve our goal in 10 years.”

So what is the shell game being played by UNC? Actually it’s a charcoal shell game. The UNC cogeneration facility will test co-firing coal with biomass in the form of dried wood pellets later this spring and torrefied wood – basically charcoal that grinds like coal later in 2010.

Campus Progressives were beaming. After all, they had forced UNC to behave the way they wanted. Mr. Stewart Boss, coordinator for the Coal-Free UNC Campaign and co-chair for the UNC chapter of the Sierra Student Coalition said “We have been fortunate to work with a university that has been responsive, open-minded and willing to hear our story. Our universities should be at the forefront of developing clean energy technologies and preparing students to be clean energy leaders. I hope other universities will soon follow UNC’s lead in moving beyond coal.”

In February 2010, Mr. Boss (a most perfect surname for a Progressive) demonstrated with others against the use of coal. Co-demonstrator Ms. Laura Stevens said, “We want to get a commitment from the University to end the use of coal. Then we’re open to research.” Now that’s true Progressive thinking. First you set a “feels good” goal. Then you figure out how you can meet your goal. The hell with technology and economics. If you want the pony, then you’re getting the pony. (See DTH Coal Pony Story.)

Here are the sad truths. Coal does contain trace amounts of dangerous heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic. Coal does produce greenhouse gases when burned. But so does UNC’s biomass replacement fuel substituting for coal. That’s right. Coal was formed from heated compression of biomass. Charcoal, as in char-coal, (as well as other forms of biomass) contains trace amounts of mercury and arsenic. Charcoal produces the same greenhouse gases (GHG). Charcoal (or torrefied wood) produces about the same quantity of GHG per ton as coal.

What? So how will UNC going “Coal Free” help the environment? It won’t. The new biomass fuel is as carbonaceous as the old fossil fuel. It will just cost UNC more money because the biomass fuel costs more per BTU produced.

Who cares? It sure does feel good to get up in front of unquestioning news media and say that you’re going “Coal Free”.

Will the last bureaucrat at the Department of Revenue please turn off the lights when they leave?

Up until November 2009, the North Carolina Department of Revenue published monthly reports on taxable sales and sales tax collections on a county basis. Then it simply stopped. You can't get the information to compare Xmas 2009 to Xmas 2008.

Since the October 2009 report, no more reports have been listed at the DOR website. No explanation has been given for the lapse in reporting. Pulpsters having the need to know can look below at a table comparing the sales tax performance in October 2009 to that of October 2008. Curiously, although the taxable sales amount remained virtually flat, the tax collections rose statewide by eighteen percent (18%). Orange County had a three percent (3%) dip in taxable sales, yet managed to increase tax collections by two percent (2%).

The winning county was Pamlico. It increased taxable sales by forty percent (40%) and tax collections by forty seven percent (47%).

The losing county was Cherokee. It decreased taxable sales by thirty two percent (32%) and tax collections by thirty six percent (36%).

Ignorance is bliss.

What, it’s local election season again? Well, technically it’s primary election season, but in one-party dominated Orange County, the primary election IS the general election. It's gotten to the point that many of the top positions aren't even contested any more within the Democratic Party, much less have a Republican challenger.

Reliably, the local news media has maintained an entertainment approach to the primary election, mentioning it only in passing. The handful of “informative” puff pieces have been, yet again, directed to vague questions with equally vague answers. As reported in the local Chapel Hill Watch blog, the ”Skewed & Preserver” maintains its outstanding track record of subjective reporting about the county sheriff's election.

Carrboro Alderman Joel Hall Broun is running for county commish. You would know next to nothing about her amazing performance record in Carrboro. (Doubling taxation without increasing government services is a talent.) The local media doesn’t report the increase in taxes paid during a politician’s tenure or the increase, if any, in government services during a tenure. Why enable informed decisions when you can rely on ignorant whispering campaigns about how “conservative” a non-anointed candidate is?

Turns out that one commish challenger (naturally labeled by local Progressives as “conservative”) decided to educate voters in a unique way. Mr. Phelps’ supporters placed the above pictured flyer on cars at the Hampton Pointe shopping center in mid Orange County. Thankfully, the local media didn’t report any of the flyer facts, thereby inadvertently affecting the inevitable whispering campaigns.

Ignorance is bliss.