Editor’s note: The following is a statement read during the county’s June 6 meeting by Polk County Commissioner Renée McDermott regarding a budget proposed by commissioner Tom Pack.

There’s been quite a bit of discussion about what budget the county commissioners should adopt: A responsible one that keeps Polk County on a sound track of fiscal responsibility? Or an unsustainable budget that spends every cent that Polk County takes in, and spends more from its capital reserves, with no regard for the future?
Let’s look at the facts.
What would commissioners Pack and Owens’ budget and proposed 1 cent tax cut do for taxpayers? It would save a taxpayer with a $100,000 house $10 a year. It would save a taxpayer with a $10,000 car $1 per year. That’s all.
But what would that budget do to Polk County, its children and other citizens? A lot of damage.
Maybe most important, it would cause Polk County Schools to lose its wonderful preschool program that gives our children a strong start on their educations. The school system says that the preschool program is the basis for our children’s high test scores in math and reading in the elementary years, placing them at and near the top of all North Carolina schools. That would be lost. There would be no money left over for it.
Their budget would take away $39,000 from the planning department’s funding. That would stop, or terribly curb, Polk County’s work on implementing the comprehensive plan and Unified Development Ordinance, projects that Polk County citizens have wanted and worked hard on for many years. That would be lost. Intentionally starved by lack of funding.
Their budget would take a large chunk of money out of Polk County’s fuel contingency, when the price of gasoline is high and is likely to go higher.
It would cut fully half the money set aside this year to repair the Lake Adger dam, when the State of North Carolina could require the county to fix it at any time. Their budget could cause the county to have to borrow more money at the same time the majority of the commissioners have been successfully paying down Polk County’s debt. Doesn’t the county need to pay off its remaining $14,310,380 debt before cutting taxes? The debt was about $24 million four years ago. We need to keep up the majority’s progress on paying that down.
And their budget would not set aside a cent toward the proposed Lake Adger water treatment plant, which, while some years away, will cost $7 million to $10 million. Shouldn’t we be planning ahead for that, rather than spending every cent the county takes in, as Pack and Owens insist?
That’s the damage that would be done, and more. Pack and Owens argue that we should spend every cent of revenue, even revenue they fantasize is still available from two years in the past. (That money was already used by the majority to pay down Polk County’s debt. It’s no longer available.) They make no provision for capital reserves in any year, even though it’s well known that we have capital needs now and that more will appear in the future. No responsible businessman would do that.
No responsible businessman would raid capital reserves to pay current operating costs, as Pack and Owens propose, especially with no way to pay those operating costs (pay raises for some Polk County employees but not for others) in the future.
Once salaries are raised and a tax cut is made, as Pack and Owens propose, there would be no way to sustain that raise and cut in the next year, and taxes would need to be raised. That’s surely not a deal Polk County taxpayers want. But it would be what the Pack/Owens budget would require.
And what a coincidence, the tax increase would be required in an election year, just as Pack and Owens intend. They want to force the county into that box, feeling sure that the responsible majority on the board of commissioners would take the necessary step, just in time for Pack and Owens to demagogue it in the election. Of course, Pack and Owens would not vote for the budget with a tax increase and would blame it on the majority, even though they would have caused the need for an increase.  Pack has voted in favor of only one budget in all his years as a county commissioner.
It’s well known that the state legislature has passed a budget sun-setting the temporary 1 cent sales tax, and that those revenues will be lost to the counties. That will bring Polk County’s revenues down next year. But Pack and Owens ignore that in proposing their unrealistic, irresponsible and unsustainable budget.
Pack and Owens tried a similar Santa Claus stunt several years ago. Pack announced a ¼ cent tax cut. Owens said in an open meeting, “I’ll do you one better,” and proposed a ½ cent tax cut, neither of which was available in the budget. The responsible majority wisely said no.
The taxpayers must have seen through their stunt that time. Both Pack and Owens were voted out of office in the next election, contrary to how they thought their scheme would work. There should be such a lesson for the taxpayers this time around too.