There’s an old saying that ... slightly rephrased ... suggests you should never write a check with your mouth that another part of your body will have to cover.
Taken another way, federal and state governments write checks that county and municipal governments will have to cover — and there’s no money in the account.
The phenomenon is referred to as “unfunded mandates.” In plain English, that means federal and state governments tell county and municipal governments what they have to do, and don’t provide the money for it. (The feds, for their part, do the same thing to state governments.)
Allegany County’s government recently said its staff has spent 1,250 hours complying with the Storm Water Management Act of 2007 and more than 3,000 hours to meet requirements of the 2010 Chesapeake Bay cleanup and county Watershed Implementation Plan.
This is “taxing local resources,” said Allegany County Adminisrator David Eberly. “Taxing” is a good word for it, because our county’s taxpayers are footing the bill.
Another example of an unfunded mandate is the state’s decision to shift hundreds of millions of dollars in pension costs to county governments, which already are strapped for cash.
There also are the federal Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Homeland Security Act, Individuals with Disabilities act and No Child Left Behind Act, which have noble purposes but leave states with the burden of paying to comply with them or face substantial fines and penalties.
Unfunded mandates are nothing new. More than 30 years ago, former school Superintendedent Wayne Hill said in an interview with the Times-News that more than a dozen teachers were retiring at the end of the school year, and there were no plans to replace them because of a decreasing student population.
However, he said, the county would start the next year with even more teachers because of certain programs handed to the school system by the state and federal governments.
Don’t you wish you could simply order whatever you want, and give someone else the bill?
Maybe you have a conscience and wouldn’t do that ... but some of the people in Washington, Annapolis and other state capitals seem to have no problem with the idea.
Editorials
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Give us a break
Give us a break
Unfunded mandates hit local, county governments
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Cashing in
As anyone who lives in the area knows, economic gains have been hard to come by in recent years. The opening of the Rocky Gap Casino Resort is one of the biggest boosts the region has seen in some time.
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Why have the media been silent all this time?
When I read the Cumberland Times-News Editorial this morning, Friday, May 17, entitled, “Outrageous,” I laughed like a kid at a birthday party!
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What are chances this much money will be spent on road?
I was intrigued by cost data summarized in reporter Kathy Mellott’s recent article, “Completing southern link of U.S. Route 219 said to be best use of highway funds,” which appeared in the Cumberland Times-News on Tuesday May 14 (Page 1A).
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School board should be doing better job with less money
The Allegany County Teachers Association (ACTA) board of directors recently submitted a letter to the editor asking the Allegany County commissioners to fully fund the Board of Education’s budget request for the upcoming fiscal year (“Commissioners should fund school board request,” April 29 Times-News).
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Better ‘Click It’
If you notice more police on the highway this week, it’s for a couple of reasons.
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They do bite
This week is National Dog Bite Prevention Week. For anyone thinking that is not such a big deal, consider that 4.7 million Americans annually are bitten by dogs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Stop buying licenses; let them find the money somewhere else
A few months ago, I received two cards from the National Rifle Association. These were dealing with a legislative alert.
They asked that I should contact Sen. George Edwards and Delegate Kevin Kelly concerning the anti-gun legislation. -
Strength of gun laws is not reflected in grisly statistics
According to the FBI’s uniform crime reports, California had the highest number of gun murders in 2011 with 1,220, which makes up 68 percent of all murders in the state that year and equates to 3.25 murders per 100,000 people.
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An old story
What for years has been an on-again, off-again battle over funding between the Allegany County Commissioners and the Allegany County Board of Education seems to be growing even uglier.
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‘Forgotten warrior’ not forgotten
The Korean War is often called “The Forgotten War.” My generation remembers the Battle for LZ X-Ray at Ia Drang, The Tet Offensive, and Khe Sahn of the Vietnam War.
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