Part III – When is a Government Not A Government

  In Summery these governments that aren’t really governments divert money from your jurisdiction that could be put to better use elsewhere.  If not used to fix streets, roads, and water or sewer improvements then to improve the ability of people to care for them selves.They are run by elected officials that hire their own staff to take care of the day-to-day issues.  Opponents are correct when they call these sorts of things “another layer of government” because that is in fact just what the yare.  In Portland Oregon there are four agencies that govern the cutting down of trees.  Stare, County, Metro and the city of Portland.  They all have different rules, which, not surprisingly, conflict with each other. 

The resources consumed by these sorts of governments that aren’t could be better spent elsewhere or not collected at all.  In the case of the latter a more robust economy would be the result.

In theory these sorts of governments have a responsibility to the people via open elections.  Just try to contact them to offer an opinion or to let them know that their policies are not working.  They are no place to be found and on the odd chance that you actually do contact them they will discount what you tell them, This is why it took the city’s of Gresham and Beaverton to pressure TRI-MET into more policing and checking of fares.  TRI-MET refused to do so based on consumer or passenger complaints alone.

Sherman

Part II – When is a Government Not A Government

  Other things that can be a government but really are not one are “Government Corporations”.  In Oregon this means TRI-MET or the “TRI County Metropolitan Transportation Corporation”.  Created by the Oregon legislature to provide public transportation in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties.The Oregon state legislature, property tax, user paid fares and bonds provide the funding.  TRI-MET has its own elected officers, police, maintenance, and bureaucratic offices and officials.

City and county governments cannot make or change policy, set schedules, or demand fixes to equipment but they can and do put police officers on the trains to provide safety.  However, this only happens when the mayors of the cities become inundated with their citizen hounding them to fix safety issues that TRI-MET refuses to fix.

The private citizen has almost no way to contact the elected representatives directly and it is the decided observance of some that the TRI-MET administration really does not care about the people that ride their busses and trains.  Case in point; if someone calls in to report a ticket vending machine out of order the repair takes thirty days.  Thirty days to get someone in a truck onto the street to fix the thing. Call in more than once and one is told that they are “so very busy”.  Doing just what no one seems to know but there are only about one hundred vending machines and a check up of them takes five minutes or less.  Do the math and we have eight hours to check al the ticket machines add in traffic and one gets sixteen hours.  Sixteen hours is equal to two days of work and fixit people work forty-hour weeks.  Thirty days to fix a machine is absurd and not being to rattle someone’s cage to make things happen better or effect a change is maddening.

While TRI-MET usually pleads poverty especially if ticket enforcement is requested remember that they receive about forty million just in property taxes from single-family homes.  While they do employee a lot of people it is highly unlikely that their payroll is forty million dollars a year.

Yet they are a government that does not have to meet any of the traffic laws of the state or the accountability laws that all other governments in the state are required to meet. Additionally TRI-MET is a monopoly of public transportation because the state legislature saw fit to stifle competition.

It is to be noted that as currently operated TRI-MET busses and trains are not:

1. Fast.
2. Dependable.
3. Convenient.
4. Safe.

The conclusion is that if one is going to have public transportation there has to be a better way than this. Allow for rather public infusion of information and opinions instead of making all of the decisions extra meeting and expecting the public meetings to be a rubber stamp.

Sherman

Part I -When is a Government Not A Government

In the late 1960’s the Oregon state legislature passed some laws that created something called Councils of Government.  This was an effort to get several counties and cities or towns to develop intergovernmental relationships that allocated resources and population.  Easing the pain of population growth while keeping a livable clement was said to be the goal.  Proponents thought this was a real good way to do things, get everyone on the same page, read their page, and have a utopia of sorts.  Detractors saw this as an additional layer of government that removed personal liberty and infringed on the freedom of society as a whole.

All in all thirty-five years on and the detractor have been proven right in more ways that one.  Councils of Government have removed from towns and cities the ability of developing their own population projections, determining traffic flow, deciding on a mixture of public and transportation options.  They have also diverted funds for transportation, law enforcement, solid waste and other services that cities, towns, and county governments used to have available to them to meet the needs of their respective citizens.

Town’s, cities and counties are no longer able to set density, services, or taxes in and of themselves but have become subservient tot a layer of government that stands between them and the State.  This has consequences in that roads are not sized correctly to the new density; services are either stretched or hopelessly out paced by demand that there is no hope of helping the population that needs it.

Political decisions that are made at the level of the Council of Governments are not always clear and in turn a rubber stamp of approval is expected of counties and cities.  While the Council of government do have elected officials but they to be not in reach of the vast majority of the people that they govern.  A disconnect of sorts, created by the idea that elected people are smarter than everyone else, leads to poor governance and political decisions which later on turn out to be just plane wrong.

When participating in a Council of Government always s remember to report back to the people who elected you with the thoughts and decisions that are being made, contemplated, or mentioned – even if just in passing.  For it is important that your constituency know what the potential hurt an pain is coming from and weather or not you are going to protect them.

Protection from the poor governance, theft of funds, and arrogance that the Council of Governments tend to breed is impossible because of the protection that the state government legislatively provides.  Creating another layer of government with all sorts of laws and regulations that your city or county cannot defend against regulating your own efforts for good governance and open government useless.  All the while sucking off the needed funds and fees needed by local governments to meet the needs of their populations while keeping those very same fees and taxes reasonable for the vast number of people below or at the median wage for your are. 

Since Councils of Government are created by the state it stands to reason, from a normal person point of view, that the Council of Government is not really a government at all but a body of people elected to make their lives harder than they need to be.

Sherman

When A Tax Is Added Without Consent – That Which Is Not Denied Is Permitted

There will be times when a fee or a method of raising money needed for a project or a fund will not be possible, because of the limits on what vehicle can be used to generate the needed funds.

It is a bit hard to plead poverty when thirty two million dollars are distributed from the general fund to other town or city agencies.  This is the case in Portland Oregon and coupled with the fact that the city needs forty four million dollars to repair roads make the case for raising additional monies ludicrous.  What happened is that the city decided, via the elected officials, to place a fee, in reality a tax, on each and every city utility bill.  Water and sewer departments do not repair roads but following the dictum of  “That Which Is Not Denied Is Permitted” the city council decided to do just that.  Oregon, you see, does not have a statewide law that prohibits such a practice. 

What this accomplishers, and I do not recommend it is a funding source creation without voter or even citizen participation. A far better method would be to come up with local street bonds in dimensions of 1,5 25, 50, 100, 1000 dollars that when sold the purchase price goes into an interest barring account.  The interest is then split between the bondholder, the city project (in this case roads), and the fund itself.  This would have the benefit of paying back the bondholder with interest, funding the project and adding revenue to the fund sans purchase of the bonds.

Not a bad idea, though it is not thought of by politicians who spend their lives running Down the Serer Pipe.

Sherman

Governance And The Demands From Other Governments

It is at about this time that we mention a bit more about the demands of other governments as it relates to governance.  Governance as we all know is how elected officials and the bureaucracy do what it is that they do either to the pleasure or determent of the people that they govern.

Counties generally demand that towns supply the county a central place of commerce as well as a gathering place of the population and tax revenue.  State governments generally demand of counties that they police their populations, provide roads, libraries, and environmental services.  The Federal government demands states provide for commerce in their state as relates to tax revenue as well as other demands for environment, wages schools and such. 

At no time are monies shared so when the Federal government adjusts their clean water standard the local government must pay for compliance up from.  Neither the State nor the counties will offer a dime for the mandates that they force off onto others.  Yet the county population uses the services of the town the county population assumes that when they purchase something the cost of flushing the toilet or cleaning up there upchuck off the sidewalk is paid for.

This demand by other governments pushes up the cost of living to the point where roads do not become paved because the local’s money is going elsewhere.  The only way to get past this is for the citizens of the United States of America to demand a “cease and desist” for unfounded mandates because good governance demands nothing less.

Sherman

The Funding Locals Have Not – Money Spent In Advance

When one becomes elected to a local government the first lesion in reality is that money is on short supply.  Where that money goes is not totally controlled by them either.  State and Federal governments have mandates on all governments and funding, or money, is not always included.  Although both State and federal governments are quick to make a low interest loan and on rare occasions grants they expect you to come up with the needed funds.  So in the first year of office the newcomer to the local jurisdiction learns that they only have control of ten percent of the money collected by their jurisdiction.  Additionally they only have a ten percent on where, how, or for what that money goes for.  Imagine the state of Washington pleading poverty to Friday Harbor in the 1990’s when the town asked for a six million dollar grant to increase the capacity and update their sewer.  The year the town asked for the grant the state released figures form the previous year that in San Juan County the state received ninety one million in sales tax receipts, Poverty indeed!

Everyone I know can read their tax bill and when they read it some how they interpret it to mean that the town or the county is collecting all this money.  The fact is that in every state several taxing districts can and do collect taxes.  The newly elected to office holder learns in the first week just what line on that bill they have responsibility for, Typically state government collects most and schools are next yet the local school district is always poor.  Taxpayers read their bill and see the local school districts bond tax, maintenance tax and the state school tax then add the three items together.  Schools get a lot of money it is a fact that the only other parts of government or taxing districts that get more are fire departments or fire taxing districts

Then the people who receive their tax bills collar the elected official and want to know where all the money goes.  If the local budget is done correctly then the locals can be pointed to a budget that shows where all the money comes form.  Grants, loans, bonds, fees, payments for water, sewer and 5the like.  The budget will also list every item where money goes, block top, office supplies, computers rent, building and road upkeep.  An outstanding budget will even list they employees by name and provide a salary schedule so if you know that your next-door neighbor is the lead man at the road department and he has worked there twenty years you can see how much he makes.

Keep in mind though that local government can only spend money on ten percent of what needs to be done as the state and Federal governments have mandates for ninety percent of money collected.  ADA compliance, arterial road upkeep, storm water treatment, how many people needed to replace a valve on a water line and more, all of these things cost money and neither the federal, state or county governments really care if your town or city can afford it.

What is not done so much, I admit I could have done better, is to marshal other local governments and taxing districts and REQUIRE County, state and Federal governments to fund the mandates.  While it looks like local government has a lot of discretion spending money they actually do not.  All local governments could do a better job of explain to everyone at their location just what the money does go for,

So the next time you look at your property tax bill ask this question, “Why do I not see my taxes as part of spending in the town governments budget”.  If you live in Friday Harbor Washington you can forget this question as they have the only budget I know of that tells where it all comes from where it all goes and a narrative that explains it down to the last penny.

I have a blog roll on this blog and you can look at the budgets of other governments, if you can find them because on some web sites you will have to dig a bit.

Sherman