The Observation Deck

Looking over the Lakewood 2011 budget, I find it a bit unnerving at how much state and federal income is needed to balance our local budget. But not being too familiar with the process, I have a couple of questions...

1) Do we lobby for the money first then do the projects if we are awarded funding, or is it the other way around, do we start the projects and then hope that we get funding from outside sources?

2) Given the recent trend, is there any plan to wean Lakewood off of State and Fed grant money? Is financial independence even theoretically possible?

3) With over $2 million in new vehicles planned for this year alone, does the fleet department do an audit to verify that replacement is cheaper and more viable than continued use and maintenance for even 6-12 more months?

4) when we do a project that is paid for with state and federal money, do we front the cost and get reimbursed or do they cut us a check up front?

If the latter, would it be possible (or ethical) to get into a pattern of accepting the outside funding and holding it for a period of 12 months before starting the project it was allocated for? Would that lag time be enough to provide additional interest income in an effort to rebuild our permanent fund?

just thought I'd ask. I spend so much time on national issues that most of this local stuff is Greek to me.

1. "Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds a need for the money it gets."
--Ronald Reagan

I sense it works both ways.

2. "We're spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you'll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we'd be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead."
--Ronald Reagan, 1964

I agree with you completely Bret. Keep the money close to the people who need it. There will be less waste in the bureaucratic process.
Good luck to anyone in trying to get that change made, though.

4. I don't know if that would be possible. Some money sources have a specific time-frames in which they must be used, otherwise they are forfeited.

Roy Pitchford wrote:1. "Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds a need for the money it gets."
--Ronald Reagan

Given the enormous increase in deficits and government spending Reagan presided over, the above quote can best be described as something that sounds cool...and doesn't mean anything.