New budget doesn't solve any Blount County problems
  The new 07/08 Blount County budget, rammed through by the Mayor and the political machine, fails to curb the Sheriff’s runaway spending. Worse, the budget continues to shortchange our schools, and it penalizes other county department heads who have been working hard to control spending. Do the trends shown on the chart (based on the proposed budget), below, reflect your priorities for the county?
spending chart
The orange line shows the increase in your personal income, if you have been lucky enough to keep up with inflation. The blue line adds population growth to inflation. If our county officials are doing a good job, the growth in county expenditures should be at, or below, the blue line. Other East Tennessee counties are able to limit their General Fund spending increases to this level. 

The red line shows the runaway growth in Blount County General Fund spending. The General Fund covers most county expenditures, except School and Highway spending. Since 2002, General Fund spending has been growing at more than double the rate of inflation plus population growth. Many of our General Fund departments, such as the Registrar of Deeds, the County Clerk, the County Trustee, Buildings, and Information Technology have done a good job of keeping their spending in line with inflation plus population growth. Then, why do we have a problem with runaway General Fund spending? The answer is excessive spending in the Sheriff's department. The Sheriff's department has, in effect, been draining badly needed funds from the School and the Highway departments since 2002.

The county Highway Department spending (black line) has actually been below the sum of inflation plus population growth (the blue line) and is projected to stay there next year. Our county School spending has been at or below the blue line for many years. In the next budget year, it is projected to reach this level for the first time.

Is the runaway Sheriff's department spending being brought under control in the new budget? No. The increase in Sheriff's department spending is more than 50% greater than the increase in inflation plus population growth. Nearly all the proposed tax increase went to fund the Sheriff's spending increase.

The new budget did not even take steps to control the Sheriff’s wild overspending on cars. The state audit report says, that in 2002, the Sheriff did his job with 132 vehicles. By 2006, he had increased the size of his fleet to 263 vehicles. Population increased by less than 10% over the same period. The Sheriff has approximately 265 total employees, including jail guards, clerical people and cafeteria workers. There are less than 140 people who have a real need a county Sheriff’s car. Yet the new budget provides nearly $900,000 for even more cars.

Who is watching out for the taxpayers in all this. Finance Director David Bennett is supposed to. However, Bennett has a major conflict of interest. He is Chairman of the County political machine. This may be preventing him from doing a proper job of overseeing the most powerful person in the politcal machine, the Sheriff.

About the only thing good in the new budget is that it provides the funds needed to bring all our Deputies up to a competitive wage. The funds are available to give Deputies making less than $30,000 an immediate 15% salary increase, and those making less than $39,000 an immediate 10% salary increase. Of course, everyone else would get the same 5% increase that will be standard for all other county employees.