JOURNAL BLOGS
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24
Apr 2008
Two sides of a tough economy
Posted by Scott Spielman
at 4:26 PM | Comments (1)
Sitting through a budget hearing here in Wayne is enough to get anyone angry.
This is primarily for reasons I’ll write about later, but for now there are a couple of ways the city has been hurt on both sides of the difficult economy.
First, there wasn’t enough money to hire an additional police officer, although additional is probably not the optimum word since the hire would only bring the department back up to where it was a few years ago.
The city may also be forced to lay off or reduce the hours of a staffer in the Youth Assistance department, close up that building and move the service to the community center.
At the same time, the economy is forcing more and more people to make bad choices; drive off without paying for gas, turn to petty robberies as a way to make some quick cash—things that would require more police on the street, or have a proactive service that can catch young people before they take a turn for the worse.
It’s funny how many of these types of services can be funded through something like, say, increased state shared revenue. And, while lawmakers are patting themselves on the back as they plan to restore an additional 4 percent to communities this year, they don’t talk about the millions they’ve taken away…
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