Triadwatch co-blogger George Hartzman makes an appearance in today’s N&R write-up on Guilford County’s looming debt bomb:
With declining revenues and investments, mounting debt and dwindling reserves, some critics are asking: What is Guilford County’s long-term financial outlook?
…George Hartzman, a local blogger and executive with Wells Fargo Investments, takes issue with the commissioners calling the budget “balanced” at all. At the Triad Watch blog, he notes the county’s practice of taking tens of millions from its savings when expenditures exceed revenues.
“They don’t talk about the $34 million they took this year from the fund balance,” Hartzman said Tuesday. “That’s not a ‘balanced’ budget.”
As you can imagine, what jumped out at me was the fact that the debt is largely driven by bond debt. Lesson here, eh——don’t vote for bonds, although I don’t exactly remember the referendum approving $34 million in federal bonds to fix leaky roofs and replace heating and air conditioning units.
It seems to me the solution’s real simple: Chairman Skip Alston will just have to keep cutting. Alston’s commitment to leaner government will be put to the test next year. He won’t have his buddy Steve Arnold with him, but he will have Bill Bencini, the lone High Point City Council member to vote against two-thirds bonds for various projects, including the greenway and streetscapes.
