Another GOP Tax Debacle.

Fresh off last week's approval of a municipal budget with a tax increase nine times the current inflation rate, comes word the all GOP has another fiscal screw-up on their hands. This one involves $150K owed for unpaid federal and state payroll taxes due to the fraudulent actions of a contracted payroll services vendor. According to the OT, the Committee plans to meet tomorrow to pass an emergency appropriation to pay the $150K and charge it against the 2010 budget. Why not demonstrate some of the GOP "fiscal conservativeness" we only hear about during election campaigns and make the necessary cuts in the current 2009 budget to accommodate this new expense? Yes, this will this mean hard choices, which explains why Mayor Ken Short is predicatively opting to take the easy way and put us $150K in the hole for 2010. I can insure you if I were still the Finance Liaison, I would find $150K in a $16.6 million budget in a heartbeat. However, with James Harmon now serving in this position, don't look for any solid recommendations anytime soon as Jim simply isn't up to the challenge.

As some may recall, this isn't the first payroll tax debacle to make news in our town. In 2008, former GOP County Committee Chairperson Bruce Kreeger was sentenced to one year and a day of prison time after failing to pay over $200K in payroll taxes for his ATM service business.