Benjamin’s Transparency Doesn’t Extend To Budget

By FITSNews || City of Columbia, S.C. mayoral candidate Steve Benjamin has built much of his “hope and change”-themed campaign around the notion of government transparency, but some are beginning to wonder whether his promised “sunlight” will reach into what has become the city’s “heart of darkness” – its budget.

On the one hand, Benjamin has promised to restore fiscal responsibility to the city – but on the other hand he’s also won several key public safety endorsements by pledging to reimburse Columbia’s police, firefighters and first responders in the amount of $9 million (money that has been stripped from their budgets due to the city’s poor financial management).

So … are these two promises complimentary? Or mutually-exclusive?

To understand the answer, one must first understand the depth of the fiscal disaster that Columbia’s current crop of corrupt leaders (like Tameika Isaac Devine and E.W. Cromartie) have visited upon the city.  We’ve touched on Columbia’s fiscal incompetence in previous posts, but the numbers are truly staggering.

In 2002, Columbia had roughly $65 million sitting in two reserve accounts.  Eight years (and $165 million in deficit spending) later, Columbia’s reserves have been completely expended, and to help fund the ongoing waste and inefficiency the city’s governing majority has been raiding a deferred maintenance fund for its aging sewer system – a move that is already beginning to have serious (and expensive) consequences.

Seriously, just ask anybody living on Broad River Road …

On top of all this, the city has raised property taxes on its residents by 25 percent over that time period – to the point that Columbia now has the highest millage rate of any municipality in the state.  And obviously, those rates are only going to get higher now that Columbia has decided to bail out a failed University “research campus” to the tune of $154 million.

So what did city leaders spend all of that money on?

Well, since 2002 the city’s workforce has exploded from 1,800 to 2,200 total positions – most of them middle management jobs in politically-correct fields of “governance.”  Also, the city’s highest-paid employees received huge salary increases totaling more than $5 million from 2004-09, according to a recent report from La Socialista (a.k.a. The State newspaper).

Typical, typical, typical … those in control of the public purse strings took care of themselves first, their middle managers second and then left the cops, firefighters (and the public) holding the bag.

Where does this leave Columbia today?

Well, the total budget for the coming fiscal year (2010-11) is around $103 million – with public safety (police, firemen, first responders) receiving about half of that amount.  Of course, the budget is running a $2-5 million deficit, according to the latest estimates, which would obviously balloon to anywhere between $11-14 million if Benjamin adds his $9 million reimbursement.

City councilman Kirkman Finlay – leader of the city’s fiscal conservative minority and Benjamin’s main opponent in the mayoral race – has been trying to help balance the spending plan, but a spokesman for his campaign tells FITS that the city “simply cannot pay for all of the promises.”

Indeed, that’s the problem when you grow bureaucracies beyond the point of sustainability – you start jeopardize the few services that government ought to be providing.  In fact, at the state level “GOP” leaders actually do everything within their power to force cuts to front-line agencies during lean times so that the public will be more inclined to support future tax hikes and spending increases.

It’s a vicious, unsustainable cycle – but it all starts with politicians making promises that the people’s wallets and pocketbooks can’t keep.

Accordingly, if Benjamin is serious about transparency, then he should tell city voters where the money for his law enforcement reimbursement (which we support, by the way) is coming from in the city budget.

Will he raid the city’s municipal courts? Its park system?

Will he shut down the city’s $154 million bailout of the failed “Innovista” research campus?

Sadly, neither Benjamin nor the other free-spending candidate in the race – local attorney Steve Morrison – have submitted detailed spending plans, which leads us to believe that their rhetoric on “fiscal responsibility” is just that … rhetoric.

Battered and bruised Columbia taxpayers deserve better, frankly.

In fact, without leaders who will shoot straight on its financial situation, expect South Carolina’s capital city to retain its title as the “Face of the Recession.”

UPDATE: Benjamin backers counter that his “common sense budget” does identify specific savings. Critics of the budget – which is actually more a list of spending reductions than it is a “budget” per se – claim that Columbia has already implemented a number of the recommendations Benjamin has put forward, including a hiring freeze that represents the largest amount of identified savings.