[Baltimore Sun] Eric Bouchat: Carroll County voters aren’t getting the representation they deserve | COMMENTARY
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I was greatly frustrated by the last Carroll County budget process that resulted in raising recording fees on home buyers and came close to raising property taxes by 2 cents per $100 assessment, during a time of household fiscal crisis county-wide.
Having served the county as a commissioner and now a state delegate, in addition to running a business for 30 years, I have experience on this subject and knowledge of what proactive actions elected officials can take to prepare for the next budget crisis. And it is coming fast.
We all read the headlines about the state being in a fiscal free fall due to its inability to comprehend economics, inflation, cost of goods sold and a delusional climate change energy policy that does absolutely nothing for us except raise our utility bills. In typical form, the state wants to push the financial burden of their poorly thought-out educational and energy policies onto the counties to raise taxes and cover for their lack of economic logic.
Our county commissioner board in the last budget session almost chose to raise our taxes and drive those on fixed incomes and tight house budgets deeper into poverty, while inflation destroys the value of the little money they possess. This action gave me great pause and concern about what kind of fiscal philosophy Carroll County Republican leaders advance as representing their conservative constituents. Wanting to raise taxes and give a publicly elected official a 50% raise is not what I was elected to do while my citizens suffer.
Fortunately, some behind-the-scenes political leveraging flipped the one deciding vote to reverse the property tax increase. However, my fear, as yours should be, is that next year those of us who care about your household income crisis will not be successful at stopping another attempt to raise your taxes.
A proactive policy, by my office, has been submitted to both the commissioner board and delegation to get in front of the pending fiscal shortfalls based upon the following facts:
The Maryland General Assembly, not the commissioner board, is the legal legislative branch of Carroll County.
The county delegation is responsible for oversight of the board, which is commissioned by the General Assembly to form the county budget on behalf of the state legislature.
As a member of the delegation and the only one who is experienced in serving as a commissioner, I wish for the public to support the following policies by contacting their elected representatives.
All of the departments and agencies that compose the county budget should be divided by five and assigned to the commissioners individually, so they can participate in their preliminary budget formulation process that leads to the creation of the recommended budget presented to the full board.
Only publicly elected officials who serve on the board should be allowed to place items on the public session agenda, and all administrators must approach and solicit the approval of a commissioner before an item they desire can be entered into the session agenda.
When a delegation member requests to be heard before the full board in public session regarding the performance of publicly commissioned duties, they are to accommodate the request by the superior elected official.
All items entered upon the public agenda by a commissioner must be footnoted for public awareness with the name of the commissioner or commissioners responsible for it. This is basic legislative procedure in both national and state legislatures for transparency.
These simple political and administrative science policies would achieve two objectives badly needed in county commissioner government: transparency and accountability. Our elected officials need to take control of both their public agenda and the budget process from beginning to end. The budget is the primary responsibility of the commissioners on behalf of us, the delegation and full General Assembly, due to our citizens lacking sovereignty over our county government.
At present, 70% of the county budget process is done completely behind the publicly elected officials’ backs. When the recommended budget gets dropped on us elected officials by the bureaucracy, we are basically clueless, staring at thousands of numerical columns that have zero meaning to us because no one who is elected had any developmental briefings during its creation. This puts the elected officials at a severe disadvantage compared with the administrators, because knowledge is power. We lack it and they have it. This is not what my constituents want.
Governing responsibly involves managing other people’s hard-earned money taken from them in taxes and fees to perform the necessary duties of a healthy civilized society. We need to accept this axiom and start taking fiscally responsible measures now to head off another attempt by administrators and politicians to redistribute your income for their agenda, not yours.
Passing any historic legislation that expands and secures citizen sovereignty over the legislators is difficult when your fellow politicians benefit from the system as is. Citizens of all counties being sovereign over their municipal governments seems to be blasphemy among my colleagues. That’s part of the reason why I won’t be seeking reelection to the General Assembly. Unless the press does its job and exposes the truth to the people, the center of power remains more in the hands of politicians than The People.
Would you run a business like we are running the county government? If not, exercise your rights by influencing your elected representatives, before they try and take more of your income to compensate for their lack of duty. Governing is hard work, and we need to know what we’re doing during a crisis.
Christopher Eric Bouchat, a Republican, is a state delegate representing District 5, covering Carroll and Frederick counties.
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