State of the County Speech
More on this later, but check out the text and audio recording (downloadable at the county website) of County Executive Ken Ulman's State of the County speech and tell me what you think in the comments.
posted by Evan | 12:45 AM
2 Comments:
County Ex.Ulman delivered a very good speech, full of hope, while addressing potential problems and their possible solutions.
He explained the budget challenges very well, by expressing the down turn in revenues, while we are faced with ever increasing expenses. I see this trend continuing and resulting in some very hard decision making over the next four years.
His comments addressing police staffing are reassuring. We have been running the risk of burning out police offices with overtime to cover for the staffing shortages. The increase in staffing cost will be off set by reductions in overtime pay which should be a welcome item for budgeting.
It is my understading that the GASB is not a one time hit, but the 476.6 million liability is to be spread over a period of years. Still painful but not a killer.
I.T. This I believe is were the quick sand is. There is always the chance of large dollar mistakes as we saw with the installment of systems in our schools. But it is worth the risk for the promises of efficiency, accountability and resident/business accessability.
BRAC, lot of talk about the benefits, but we - you and I - have to protect our life styles from the pressures of business's surges into great profits at the little guys expense. Remember COMP LITE. Need to plan, need to have good accoutability and professional/ethical approaches to problems inpacting residents.
Environment. Can't go wrong to bring this up, interest in the environment is so great that even with housing starts down, green housing material profits are up.
Health care, this may be my biggest reason for wanting to support Ken. He is coming from the heart with this one.
I wish him the best, and I think he and his staff well do great, and I appreciate after writing all this that I have my job and not his.
I must not have watched the same speech - I thought it was weak.
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