Our View: Good budget, bad pensions

The Longboat Key Town Commission’s first of its final budget hearings is set for 7 p.m. Sept. 12. It should be mostly uneventful.

Town Manager Bruce St. Denis, after the normal annual cajoling from commissioners, has made the cuts that, if all goes as planned, would result in the town finishing the next fiscal year with a $52,000 surplus on $14.5 million in expenses.

That $14.5 million, by the way, would be down 1.37% from the current year’s budget of $14.7 million. And unless the Town Commission pulls some kind of switcheroo on Sept. 12, taxpayers can expect the town’s tax rate, or millage rate, to stay the same as it is now — 1.8872 mills — for another year.

This is good.

It’s much better than what taxpayers are facing in the city of Sarasota, where budget problems all but assure property owners there will see an increase in their millage rate. And it gets worse. According to Sarasota City Commissioner Terry Turner’s analysis and projections for the next two years, unless the city makes some serious structural changes in how it pays city employees or raises taxes significantly, it could face municipal bankruptcy in 2013. Turner says the choices to fix the situation are simple: Cut employees; cut their pay and benefits (which are the cause of the crisis); or cut both. Executing those steps, however, is the difficult part.

To be sure, Longboat Key is a healthy distance from the state of the city of Sarasota. But Longboat Key’s employee pension problems are still as heavy as an August storm cloud.

In spite of endless talks, debate and contract negotiations, nothing has changed in the town’s pension problems. The $25 million-plus unfunded liability continues to grow. Taxpayers remain obligated to pay that one day, and town employees continue to enjoy extravagant benefit packages.

Just to give you an idea of what these plans are costing taxpayers: $2.8 million is proposed for this year’s town pension costs. That’s on top of $1 million for medical insurance for town employees and another $210,000 taxpayers will contribute to town employees’ 401k and deferred compensation plans.

Town commissioners have been meeting legally behind closed doors to craft plans that would bring the pension costs under control. But these talks really don’t need to be belabored. It’s as Sarasota Commissioner Terry Turner says: The solution is simple — cut benefits and pay. Executing that takes courage. When in a hole, quit digging.

+ Good night, Irene
We have learned in Florida never to discount or dismiss a named storm in August, September and October. You never know when it might be the next Andrew, Charlie, Katrina or Wilma.

And, yes, the northeastern seaboard of the United States certainly suffered its share of damage from Tropical Storm Irene, especially in Vermont and Connecticut.

But come on, TV media, cut the unnecessary hysteria. And get some perspective.

Compare and contrast:

Recall all of the “Hero-aldo” Riveras, Anderson Coopers and Jim Cantores standing in ankle-deep water on the beaches and streets, decked out in their network rain slickers, hyperventilating over what — a tropical storm? Why, even Mr. President dispatched himself to the national command center to portray himself on TV as the commander in charge (an orchestrated effort to contrast himself from his predecessor and Katrina?).

Now go back to the spring. Where were all these hypsters and the minute-by-minute coverage when the flood waters and tornadoes were ravaging the Midwest? Where was the president then?

Shame on the TV news managers, directors, producers for inciting unnecessary panic.

Just deliver the news and the facts. Drop the drama. No wonder the media have such abysmal credibility ratings.

+ Americans are oblivious
On occasion on this page, we publish excerpts from one of the world’s most astute politico-economic analysts, Australian William Buckler, publisher of the Privateer newsletter.

Buckler has a knack for putting today’s events in historical context, all the while illustrating how the policymakers’ intervention into the economy is choking freedom and leading to tyranny.

Check out these passages from his most recent edition. If only Americans could see what is really happening. Writes Buckler:

Excerpt 1: In February 1848 … another momentous event took place in London. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their “Communist Manifesto.” To quote the Manifesto directly: “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”

The Manifesto contained within it 10 measures which were deemed essential “in most advanced countries.” As has been pointed out endlessly, all “advanced countries” today have implemented (in whole or in very large part) all 10 of these measures. The most important ones — the ones which have long since been applied in full everywhere in the world — are the following:

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

5. Centralization of credit … by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

10. Free education (paid for out of state revenues) for all children in public schools.

These three were all it took, the other seven measures in the Manifesto were just window dressing. Marx and Engels knew that no nation which accepted any one of these three “measures” could defend its freedom and liberty. And no nation which accepted them has done so …

Excerpt 2: The (1991) collapse of totalitarianism across eastern Europe was actually ushered in by the Tienanmen demonstrations in China in May 1989. It culminated in the utter (and miraculously all but non-violent) collapse of the USSR 20 years ago. This was a HUGE opportunity for the West in general and for the U.S. in particular to return to the freedom which their “East Bloc” counterparts had so courageously regained. The people of the West were, for the most part, indifferent. The governments of the West, the U.S. government in particular, saw this and acted accordingly. They did not cut back on their spending.

They did not cut back on their size. They took no concrete steps to free their own people from the yoke of government. They did the opposite. Today, 20 years later, they are in the position of the desperate perpetrators of the August 1991 coup attempt. They are trying to cling to power — no matter what.

Values still to fall?
Click here to view the total assessed value of Longboat Key property and the percent change in the value since 2003.