Profligate Spenders Haste
DiFrancesco Hike Spending $52 million in One Year!
by Lowman S. Henry
Move over Barack Obama.
Move over Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
Move over Ed Rendell.
When it comes to spending you are but mere amateurs compared to the Dauphin County Commissioners.
Commissioners have uncorked a 2010 county budget that includes a whopping 25% increase in spending. That's right; in the midst of the biggest recession to hit the country since the Great Depression the spend-thrift commissioners will increase spending by 25% in just one year!
This is an interesting turn of events considering Jeff Haste and Nick DiFrancesco ran for office claiming John Payne and I were profligate spenders. Given that John and I held spending to an average annual increase of 3.9% over our term in office (less than the rate of inflation), we look like Scrooge compared to the current crew.
And, of course, the commissioners are seeking to blame others for their spending. Commissioner George Hartwick (who pled guilty to not paying his own taxes) claims a tax hike may be necessary in the future because "outside factors"� like the troubled Harrisburg incinerator are driving up costs.
It seems Mr. Hartwick must have flunked math. The county made a $1.8 million payment this year toward the incinerator. Spending for 2010 is increasing by $52 million. Clearly it is not the incinerator that is driving the spending.
The county is also going to pay more toward pension costs. That is because when investment earnings are down, the county must put more general fund revenue into the pension fund to keep it actuarially sound. In my last year in office the same situation existed. At the time Haste and DiFrancesco attacked me for fiscal mismanagement. In fact they used that very line of attack to win endorsement from the Dauphin County Republican Committee. Now that they face a similar situation, and have had to take the exact same action, I wonder if they will again see it as mismanagement.
The difference is that I proposed a budget that would cut other spending to come to grips with the need to fund the pension account. (A budget Haste and Petrucci opposed, opting instead to vote for a massive tax hike.) This time, the three Amigos in the court house have simply decided to increase spending by 25%, which may be some sort of a record for a one year spending increase.
They will tout the fact there will be no tax increase to pay for this spending binge. That is because they engineered two unnecessary tax hikes totally nearly 50% and created an artificial surplus (essentially they overtaxed us) which they are now using to feed their unbridled appetites for spending our tax dollars.
Having failed to do due diligence in overseeing the county's fiscal investment in the incinerator, and now allowing spending to skyrocket out of control the question arises as to how much longer we can afford to allow this group of commissioners to remain in office.
With all three seats on the county board of commissioners up for election in 2011, the time is now for new candidates to emerge. Because, with Democrats now in the registration majority in Dauphin County it is clear Republicans cannot maintain control of the court house if either Haste or DiFrancesco are a party standard bearer in 2011.