Town budget message needs work
To the editor:
Interim Town Manager Mr. Green’s budget message in last week’s Observer was most appreciated. His objective, to make the Town’s budget process more understandable and transparent, is commendable.
I do wonder, however, if the explanation provided by Mr. Green doesn’t end up raising many questions. For example, the funding of the general fund by the Fort Myers Beach ad velorum tax seems straightforward until later in the article when Mr. Green reveals that the property tax-based general fund ($2,427,310) is only a portion of the entire general fund, which is $8,461,201. Where did that come from? Now the desired transparency becomes a little opaque.
Then we learn that there is an even larger total budget of $24,080,099. The Town’s real budget, therefore, is almost 10 times the size of the seemingly innocuous municipal ad velorum tax-base.
So, instead of clearing away the cobwebs, a taxpayer is left to wonder how all these expenditure pockets are managed, and by whom. Instead of transparency, the taxpayer, upon learning of all these disparate spending and revenue sources, will probably be as confused as ever, maybe more so.
We should ask for an overall presentation from our policy makers and our budget professionals. Why doesn’t the Town of Fort Myers Beach make an effort to develop an explanation of the Town budget which contains all the components: expenditures, revenue sources, comparisons with previous year, and so forth? I know it’s technically possible; it may even help our policy-makers in their efforts to manage the Town’s resources. Such a presentation will certainly further Mr. Green’s objective to educate the citizenry in the intricacies of Fort Myers Beach public sector finances.
Mr. Green has made a good start. I’m hoping he continues the effort.
Edward E. Lombard
Fort Myers Beach