When asked how he would balance the budget without a property tax increase, Jacksonville City Councimember Clay Yarborough offered a vision of self-reliance not heard since the Clinton-era vilification of “Welfare Moms.”

Facing a $50 million shortfall if taxes aren’t raised, Yarborough says he would cut funding for social services and cultural programs. In his view, that wouldn’t be a one-time cut to get us through hard times. Fundamentally, Yarborough believes it’s not the proper role of government to spend taxpayer money on arts and social welfare.

“The investment needs to be from the community at large,” he said in a interview with Folio Weekly. “It’s up to the community, for businesses and individuals to decide which organizations to support.”

Yarborough said government funding lessens the motivation to give because people think government will take care of the nonprofits, and that the nonprofit community isn’t motivated to prove their worth because they can depend on public dollars. ”While it may sound beneficial and helpful, there is a dark underside to it,” Yarborough said.” It creates more and more dependency to have your way paid by others. I believe it’s my responsibility to give, to invest where I believe it will do good, but I don’t believe it ought to come out of the public trough.”

Yarborough introduced an amendment at the Finance Committee meeting on Monday, July 21, to keep the millage rate at 8.5 rather than raise property taxes by 12 percent as Mayor Peyton has requested. Yarborough says keeping the millage rate the same will force City Council to make difficult choices as it looks for $50 million in cuts to balance the budget. After the amendment passed with Council President Richard Clark casting the deciding vote, the Finance Committee voted 6-0 to keep the property tax rate the same as this year’s rate.

Mayor Peyton proposed increasing the millage rate to 9.5 after cutting $40 million from the budget, a move that still left the city $50 million in arrears. Peyton proposed the millage increase because without it, he says, the city will have to make drastic cuts to city services. He warned that the city would face closing fire stations, libraries, community centers, slashing children’s programs, closing the Ritz Theatre and LaVilla Museum, closing the Jacksonville Equestrian Center and discontinuing community events such as the Jacksonville Jazz Festival. And the city would have to cut funding to emergency shelters, crisis centers, job training programs, and grants to food banks.

Yarborough counters that Peyton’s list is a manipulative ploy to scare the public into pushing the City Council to raise the millage rate. “The mayor hasn’t been forthright,” he said. “He has given this emotion-evoking list so that the public response will be to advocate for the budget increase. But it is no longer in the mayor’s hands. The City Council will decide what to cut and what to maintain. That’s where the rubber meets the road. It’s not right to scare the public like that. And it is just not true.”

Asked where he would make cuts, Yarborough said that funding for essential city services must be maintained. Among those he listed funding for the police, fire, road maintenance, libraries, parks, and solid waste. If the full City Council votes to hold the line on a millage increase, Peyton could veto the bill. But Yarborough says that wouldn’t be the end of it “I would want us to take another vote and override it,” he says.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 11:13 am and is filed under City, News, Politics, Screwed, city financial crisis, lawmaker hijinx, waste of money?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.