JOHNSON COUNTY, IA. -- Not ever having a reputation of being careful stewards of the public treasury, the all Democrat Board of Supervisors have spent money like drunken sailors. Spending over the last four years has skyrocketed 56%. The budget for fiscal year 2007 was $53.8 million; the budget for FY 2010 is more than $84 million. That's a problem.
Instead of exercising fiscal sanity, the all Democrat board has taken reckless spending to a frightening new level.
There are plenty of examples out there demonstrating wasteful county spending.
Perhaps the most overlooked is the county auditor's office and the money spent for elections. How many times have you walked into a polling place, to see seven or eight poll workers there processing just two voters at a given time? Auditor Tom "DUI" Slockett, an entrenched Democrat, spends FAR too much money on election day wages. He callously tosses $56,000 - taxpayer money - on overstaffing polling places when fewer people and $30,000 would more than adequately do the same job.
Building new buildings in overkill and to excess is wasteful spending. The new Health & Human Services building was overdone, large spaces remain unused. Earlier this year in fact, a proposal was made to use the entire 3rd floor for housing the homeless. The floor has 30,000 square feet of unpartitioned space and with the exception of storing some personnel files, the vast space collects dust.
County spending has gone up 56% in the last four years. Has the county population grown by that much? No, not even close. Did the county plan for a rainy day? No, the all Democrat board arrogantly thought the area economy would always be cream and honey. Are we as a county playing 'catch up' because existing services were sub-par? Hardly. In fact, Johnson County Supervisor Rod "F___ You" Sullivan boasts about how good services are, ranking it one of the best in the state. Yes Rod, create a handout situation and the people will come...... Say, homeless people being told they can have a whole floor of a warm county building to themselves?
Giving pay raises to the likes of Tom "DUI" Slockett and Rod "F___ You" Sullivan during lean economic times is not a prudent use of taxpayer money. But that's what Janelle Rettig recommended as a member of the county compensation board. She has no problem with spending taxpayer money, and has a record of doing just that serving on various commissions and comittees over the years.
On top of an overkill $84 million budget, the county had the gall to ask Johnson County residents for an additional $20 million to buy some unspecified lands for unspecified uses last year. An all Democrat panel consisting of Janelle Rettig, Supervisors Rod Sullivan, Sally Stutsman, Terrance Neuzil, and Conservation Director Harry Graves (collusion?) got together and pushed a vague, "in the name of green space" agenda down taxpayer throats. Never mind that Johnson County already has the second highest amount of acreage in parks, trails, wetlands and set-asides in the state and that acreage continues to grow from non-profit and private enterprise work. Funny how the liberal county officials neglected to mention that huh? And never mind that this tax hiking land grab by the county came on the heals of the worst flood in the state's history hitting us and a souring economy to boot!
And so when driving down a county road and you still see that big pothole needing attention from two years ago, that's because the all Democrat leadership isn't managing things well. It's not because they didn't have the money to address the problem, it's because their priorities are out of whack.
Yes, let's ignore the potholes, and make the county website purdy!


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