To the Editor:
The mayor of Atlanta, Ga., William B. Hartsfield, persuaded the Georgia General Assembly to establish a model budget system. The new system would not allow the city’s budget to exceed 99 percent of the previous year’s property tax receipts. If the budget for the coming fiscal year was $1 million and revenues were the same, the budget for the new fiscal year could not exceed $990,000. The City Council went even further and did not allocate more than 95 percent of the previous year’s receipts for the new budget.
What if we had been doing this for the past 16 years, when those who were supposed to be representing us were looking the other way? Why were they so naive to believe that spending more than you have, year after year, will not come home to roost? And roost it did. So much so, it’s like a weight around our necks pulling us under the waves as we struggle to survive. It’s an albatross that won’t go away.
Can we enact a law like Mayor Hartsfield did? We can only hope that our leaders have the wisdom of the Georgia General Assembly. And to think, they did this of their own volition. Will those running for elected office, adhere to such a law and join me in petitioning the State Assembly to enact the necessary legislation to do so?
THOMAS J. BRAGEN
Candidate for Council Member at Large