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Breaking Even

Posted on May 5, 2008 at 10:40 am

The Columbia Daily Herald reports that citizens of Columbia won’t be seeing any added value from likely future tax increases:

Columbia residents will have to pay more in taxes just to keep the same services they use right now in light of what the city’s finance director is calling the worst economic times in her 12-year tenure.

With slumping revenue and skyrocketing energy costs, the Columbia City Council will need to raise the property tax rate by 4 cents to maintain current operations, City Manager Paul Boyer Jr. said Friday.

“We either have to cut the budget or raise taxes,” he said. “Cutting the budget in government normally means eliminating positions.”

Adding anything to the budget — and proposals could vary from hiring more police officers to purchasing new equipment — will result in a more extensive tax increase, said Patti Baltzer, the city’s finance director.

“We have never been in this type of position heading into budgets before— to where we are needing to propose a tax increase just to give employees a raise and pick up the gas and utilities,” she said.

Comments

9 Responses to “Breaking Even”

  1. Donna Locke writes
    May 5th, 2008 10:35 pm

    All of this relates to the services Columbia has had to provide because of the growth associated with Saturn-GM, which has never paid its way in taxes, and the growth pushing south from Williamson County. The city and county are allowing development that we can’t pay for without raising taxes on current residents, many of whom don’t want this growth and added burden. We do not have adequate impact fees on development, and I’ve observed at city council meetings the current, fairly new, Columbia city manager trying to do end runs around citizen concerns and make the developers happy.

  2. Donna Locke writes
    May 5th, 2008 10:52 pm

    The Paul Boyer mentioned here is the fox guarding the henhouse in Columbia now, thanks to the shenanigans of developer-lapdog city mayor Bill Gentner, a fired Columbia city manager who managed to get himself elected mayor by 35 votes or something because of the ignorance of the new transplants and the local newspaper’s refusal to report his history.

  3. Bob Helta writes
    May 7th, 2008 11:13 am

    Good luck City of Columbia I wish you better luck than the City of Lake Worth, Florida had with P Boyer.
    As city manager of the city of Lake Worth P. Boyer was a disaster the city will have to live with for years to come. His reign over the city left issues unresolved and his questionable management practices have and still are costing the city large amounts of money.
    When our commissioners under pressure of the citizenry “saw the light” and gave him the boot the damage was already done. So we are left to clean up after him and others he assigned during his reign to assist him. Please note he left with a generous severance package. (Better check your contract with him)

    He still owns property in the city @ 1320 S L ST and according to the Property Appraisers office claimed homestead exemption for 2007. Isn’t that illegal since this is not his and in 2007 was not his primary residence? http://www.pbcgov.com/papa/aspx/GeneralSearch/GeneralSearch.aspx

    Again good luck City of Columbia, keep your eyes open, speak up and make your city officials accountable for their actions.

  4. Gwen Hill writes
    May 7th, 2008 1:21 pm

    Yes, Paul Boyer left our city of Lake Worth in financial ruins. We are near bankruptcy. Half of our city is infested with illegals and the blight and crime is getting worse. Cops want to be taken over by the Sheriff’s Dept. because they can make more money for NOT doing their jobs. I don’t know why they think things are so bad here because we never see them on the streets and murders are on a weekly basis. Most of the Boyer appointees have been fired, retired and replaced. We still may not survive with the dodo’s running it.

  5. Donna Locke writes
    May 7th, 2008 2:44 pm

    Thank you, thank you, victims, for posting this. Now if only The Daily Herald in Columbia, Tennessee, would do its job, but that is asking too much of these pretend journalists. This paper’s publisher’s wife is a realtor, so maybe you can see some conflict of interest there, but the main problem is sheer unprofessionalism.

  6. Lynn Anderson writes
    May 11th, 2008 11:22 am

    Paul Boyer was our city manager in Lake Worth, Florida. This is a city whose government has supported development to cure all problems but instead have created different ones. Citizens have been fighting its take-over by every developer who ever was born. Boyer was our city manager when our commission voted to give our 19 acres of ocean beach to a developer on a long-term lease and change the zoning to commercial. We have so many townhouses and condos that were built that are unoccupied and will be tomorrow’s slums. Watch the bad development as the solution to increase your tax base. Efficient management is the key.

  7. David Gerard writes
    May 16th, 2008 11:29 am

    Paul Boyer was the absolute worst thing that happened to us here in Lake Worth, Florida. Worse than any hurricane that has ever hit our town. Mr. Boyer’s tenure as our city manager was riddled with corruption, deciet, lies, and much more. He brought his buddies on staff, awarded big contracts to other buddies, and our city suffered dearly. Finally our commission listened to the public and fired him.

    Why in the world did your city hire him?

  8. Walter B writes
    May 16th, 2008 8:21 pm

    Mr Boyer was our City Manager for years. We have a part time city commission and Mayor and a full time City Manager type of government. Mr. Boyer always had his “friends” being brought in as directors of city departments. He always stood up for his “Good Old Boys” covering their every move and mistake. He could care less about the citizens of the city. In fact Mr. Boyers favorite saying was “he doesn’t work for the citizens”. He even said that to me after I spoke up against him at the same commission meeting that asked for his resignation, so he was right there, he doesn’t work for us, not anymore. He is your problem now, and I hope you keep your eyes wide open to his actions. You already made your decision to hire him, now I hope you can live with the results. Wishing you my best.

  9. Donna Locke writes
    May 16th, 2008 8:33 pm

    Thank you again for these comments. Grass-roots coalitions/victims here at Boyer’s latest landing are taking note.

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