[Durham INC] let's help the City with ideas...

[Melissa Rooney]

I agree with Randy on this -- before raising any property taxes, we need to consider the prepared food tax again, and again, and again -- this would ensure that most of those who visit and utilize Durham pay into the pot (via buying meals/coffee/snacks/etc. while here). In addition, the majority of prepared food is bad for our health -- it is commonly known that even restaurant salads are fattened up so they supposedly taste better to the consumer.

I'm in favor of taxing hotel rooms too. 

Entertainment taxes make me a little more wary -- there are so many things the kids and I attend that have too many empty seats, and many entertainers/artists/etc. don't get compensated nearly enough for their work (some can't even cover expenses, but they keep doing it-- often gratis-- b/c they love it).

--Melissa (Rooney)




________________________________
From: "scjdurham at aol.com" <scjdurham at aol.com>
To: rwpickle at gmail.com; inc-list at durhaminc.org
Sent: Sat, March 6, 2010 12:17:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Durham INC] let's help the City with ideas...

Here's a novel idea.  Let's raise occupancy taxes on hotel rooms, bring back that prepared food tax, come up with some sort of entertainment tax, etc.

A huge percentage of non-Durhamites come here to work and take their money home to their municipality.  But we pay to protect them when they're here including police, fire, EMS and don't forget about the road use going back and forth from their city to ours.  They are very welcome here but it would be nice if they paid their fair share.

Some of the above items would be listed under discretionary spending.  Folks can decide whether it's how they want to spend their excess $$ or not.

Property taxes really hurt those on limited incomes, living on their social security benefits, living on unemployment compensation or who have just timed out their unemployment or simply can not secure a higher paying job.

Food for thought.

Cheryl Shiflett

-----Original Message-----
From: Randy Pickle <rwpickle at gmail.com>
To: inc-list at durhaminc.org
Sent: Fri, Mar 5, 2010 2:17 am
Subject: [Durham INC] let's help the City with ideas...

to make the budget ends meet. I've been saying this everywhere I go. Surely as a collective unit we can tell them where we see pork or come up with some place to save some cash.
 
Here's my 3 ideas:
 
1) We have a fleet of new garbage trucks; they have yet to get the massive graphics package that you regularly see on the trash can end of the truck. So what... We all know it's a garbage truck. Leave the fancy graphics off. Maybe that will even help with resale...
 
2) Fleet says we have 2100 units in service as a City; 500 are fire and safety. Let's leave those alone. That still leaves us 1600 units. Let's cut that by 25% (down to 1200 units). Between the fuel, maintenance, and gift giving of them to other cities, that's bound to be a big figure... Fleet told Budget they needed $7M this next year. When ask how they came to that figure they were told the computer program they use told them. Budget told them to tell the computer to figure out how to pay for them since it was so smart and reduced it to $1M.
 
3) Employees... IBM laid off a 1000 workers recently. It's the fastest way to make government leaner (and with less vehicles, that works out as well). I personally would help add some of those employees to a list (since I have found recently that some seem to take their jobs for granted). There's no tenure in government and some off the folks we have working for us have fallen into a comfort zone where they just think showing up enough. As far as I know, we still think of it as work. And it's time to get back to it...
 
We started off the budget process with a $16M gap; at the neighborhood Engagement Workshop we heard it was $13M; in the budget prep meetings this week it's now down to $8+M. So we're getting there.
 
Send me your ideas (not your jokes about it all; be serious) and I'll forward them on to their targeted individuals. Maybe someone out there has just the idea that will make it all work. Otherwise get ready to pay more in property taxes. They never seem to go down, only up... And you have to pay them every year... So once they go up, we're stuck.
 
RWP
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