Joseph Coletti and Michael Sanera just put out a report for the John Locke Foundation entitled “City and County Budget Crises: When in a Hole, First Stop Digging.” It states that local governments are having financial problems because they waste money on fru-fru stuff. The authors discovered that Asheville ranked fifth among the state’s thirty largest cities in per capita increase in municipal revenue (27%) between 2002 and 2007. “By FY 2007, a family of four needed an additional $1578 in income to keep up with the growth in city revenue over the past four years.” For Hickory, that family would need only $510 more. Counties in Western North Carolina increased costs for a family of four anywhere from $410 (Madison) to $1641 (Avery).