Don’t know if this is useful or not, but here it goes.
JLF’s Dr. Michael Sanera eyeballs the numbers and finds that city of Charlotte revenues grew 18 percent faster than population and inflation in recent years. Overall, Mecklenburg County outpaced growth by five percent from 2002 to 2007. In other words, revenue is fine — spending is the problem.
Or rather revenue was fine until the present economic contraction. Had our leaders and officials kept spending restrained, including debt levels, they would not be in such a fix right now. The upcoming budget season is going to be fascinating to watch.
For the city, it will be interesting to see if the appointed candidates of the status quo — Anthony Foxx and John Lassiter — actually end up on opposing sides of any meaningful city budget vote. Here’s betting they do not.
