Note two things about the 2008-09 city budget, which city manager Mary Suhm unveiled yesterday. First, Suhm is a savvy politician, certainly more sophisticated than almost everyone on the council. I mentioned this spring that her doomsday predictions could well be a smokescreen, allowing her to wave a wand over a top hat and produce a budget that was much less onerous than predicted.
Second, this is a political budget, crafted at the behest of Mayor Park Cities to fulfill Leppert’s agenda. The rest of the country may be going to hell in a hand basket, with declining tax revenues and layoffs, but it’s still flowers and sunshine in Dallas. Want more cops? You got ‘em. Want more code enforcement inspectors? You got ‘em. Don’t want a tax hike? You got it.
Suhm is betting on the come, trusting to the predictions that say the country’s economic slowdown will end this year and that Dallas will escape most of the worst of the slump. This ties in with what Leppert wants, as he revs up his campaign for the U.S. Senate as a good government, no new taxes, I can work with anyone Republican.
Will this work? I’ll parse the budget this weekend, and report back on Monday. I want to look at the budget’s sales and property tax predictions, as well as what Suhm expects gas prices and other fixed costs to do. Maybe it’s just my naturally suspicious and cynical ex-newspaperman’s nature, but making up budget deficits by selling ads on garbage trucks doesn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
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