“City Studies Revenue Sources” Headline Times Record, September 23, 2015

There is a solution to “shortfalls”, but not with this City Board of Directors running things, they are equally as incompetent as is the Fort Smith School Board.

So where did the money go, and Gosack/Bushkul? More than ample funds have always been readily available for legitimate & crucial spending purposes, such as streets, sewers, pension funds, etc.

The Board must immediately lay out in dollar terms just what the yearly costs are for funding the police/fire pensions, how much the city is in the arrears pertaining to said pensions and what the approximate dollar amounts will accrue in the next 20 years.

The Board’s solution, as with all government operations, is for more and more new tax burdens to be saddled on city residents instead of dealing with problems created by this & past administrations
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Here is a recent example of the gross incompetence and/or stupidity of the Arkansas State & Ft. Smith city governments. During the month of August, 2015 there were created in Arkansas 2,885 new jobs, 1,885 of the new jobs were government jobs. This is exactly what citizens have come to expect from corrupt governments. For those who are victims of the Benny Gooden School of logic, that’s approximately 2 government jobs “created” for every one job created in the private sector. Who pays? This exemplifies all government entities.

The obvious immediate first step is to take an economic machete to pensions and all other 30+ city departments—every one of them.
It is printed daily in the Times Record that the Directors are having “study” sessions dealing with the shortages in Fort City government, e.g. a $500 million EPA mandate, a $300,000 fine, $770,000 yearly bankrupt Convention Center, $250,000 yearly vulgar giveaway to the Mayor, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, dropped into projected Marshall’s Museum, Homeless Campuses, bikeways, non-profits, ad infinitum. Notice while millions in “shortfalls” are being decried, there are countless new projects being proposed; Trails, Sharrows, Wayfinding Signs, et al.

Government budgets have 3 basic purposes: to mollify the sheeple, to separate citizens from their property, and to raise taxes. With that said budgets are mind games, meant to bring in additional revenue.

Politicians and bureaucrats are big on words & phrases used to lure non-thinking citizens into government economic tax traps, e.g. “choose to publish”, “generally accepting”, & “so on”. Using some of Gooden’s recent phrases pertaining to his $4.2 million budget INCREASE for next year in addition to his $150 million budget…he describes as “unremarkability”, “ordinary”, “public good”, and always “it’s for the children”.

THERE IS A SOLUTION to government pillaging of we the people’s private property, it is called ZERO BASED BUDGETRY”.

ZERO BASED BUDGETRY…means every government department, e.g. fire, police, streets, parks, libraries, sheriff, county judge, et al. DOES NOT BEGIN WITH A BUDGET WITH BUILT-IN INCREASES YEAR AFTER YEAR, IT MEANS EVERY SINGLE EXPENSE HAS TO BE ANTICIPATED AND ACCOUNTED FOR THAT YEAR AND THAT EACH SUCCEEDING YEAR BEGINS WITH REDUCING THE OUT-GO. WITH COMPETENT MANAGEMENT THERE ARE SOME DEPARTMENTS THAT COULD ACTUALLY INCREASE REVENUE. (SOME DEPARTMENTS ARE CERTAINLY NOT NECESSARY WITH DUPLICATION OF DUTIES & PERSONNEL & SOME CALLED ASSISTANT, DEPUTY, & VICE MUST GO.) Every official asking for increased taxes should be recalled.
The Fort Smith city government is in the process of laying more unbearable tax burdens on city residents. Something is desperately wrong inside this behemoth. It is either corrupt to the core, incompetent or any number of other unsavory possibilities.

Unfortunately F.S. City Mayor and Board of Directors do not have the political will or courage to open up the city financial cancer for public review and corrective action

As long as citizens remain politically disengaged the condition will exacerbate.

Joe McCutchen
arkansasfreedom.net