The Gainesville City Commission recently met to address the 5.6 million dollar revenue deficit now due in 2010.

Gainesville city government has established an interesting cycle of proposing and implementing new programs that yield multi-million dollar spending deficits, year after year. According to the Commission, these deficits can only be remedied by raising taxes and creating new fees.

Addressing the shortfall created by the City Commission, Commissioner Lauren Poe told the Gainesville Sun that he would like to bring back the Fire Assessment Fee. This fee was previously set aside due to citizen outrage regarding its ill-conceived design to tax churches and charities. Such organizations are among the hardest hit financially by the current recession.

Here are two ideas to make up the deficit; neither of them involves raising taxes or imposing fees on churches and charities:

1. Stop proposing new spending projects that are not vital to our city’s survival until we are out of the recession.  This will enable tax revenue to replenish naturally.

1. Re-assess every program, expense, department, and staff position that was implemented in the last 5 years and do away with what is not absolutely necessary or within the job description of local government.

I urge readers to contact your Commissioners. Tell them to stop proposing new spending projects, stop raising our taxes, and most emphatically not to impose taxes on churches and charities.

–Robert Krames
Gainesville Resident