099: Facts About M-C’s Budget & Tax Hike

McLendon Chisholm’s [M-C] mayor and City Council are expressing concern that a significant revenue stream is drying up, which was the chief reason given for the decision to raise taxes on property owners.

However instead of cutting back on spending for a municipality with a population of just under 3,000, the newly adopted 2021–2022 budget is adding two new full-time employees for positions that leave many scratching their heads about and pay raises all around, including an 8% pay raise for the city administrator.

While most cities embrace a “best practice” of having at least a six-month reserve fund to absorb unforeseen emergencies, M-C is starting the fiscal year 2021-2022 with a SIXTEEN-month reserve and an almost NINETEEN-month reserve budgeted for the end of the fiscal year!

So, what’s really going on? Is M-C truly facing desperate times or are there other factors at play? Is the budget increase necessary and are there cuts that should have been considered? Should citizens petition for a tax rollback to be included on next May’s local ballot, as we did in 2015? If you are a taxpayer in M-C you won’t want to miss this show!

LINKS:

2021–2022 approved budget (From the M-C city webpage):
https://mclendon-chisholm.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Approved-and-Adopted-2021-2022-Budget.pdf

Email your mayor & council:

Keith Short- mayor@mclendon-chisholm.com

Lorna Kipphut- council1@mclendon-chisholm.com

Norman Willis- council2@mclendon-chisholm.com

Trudy Woessner- council3@mclendon-chisholm.com

Brian Davis- council4@mclendon-chisholm.com

Dan Tucker- council5@mclendon-chisholm.com