Sometimes events happen and the earth screeches to a halt on its axis, then abruptly starts rotating in the opposite direction. Today was such a day. Hold on to your seats. Mistress Moon and Elena agree with Corey Stewart.
Corey defended the practice of saving money. Is it possible to over-save? Is it possible to save too much money for a rainy day? For an emergency? For when times aren’t as good? Corey says no. It is fiscally responsible to save more than you need. I only heard one person disagree with him. That was Pete Candland. Pete not only disagreed with him but he rolled his eyes, shook his head and made facial gestures. To me, the behavior was disrespectful to his colleagues. Additionally, what Pete proposed or questioned showed his lack of understanding of how large municipalities are run. He appears to miss the complexities of a budget this size.
Corey was right. In fact, he sounded downright reasonable and responsible. He was back to being that old eagle scout.
In order to keep the AAA bond rating, we must have $10 million in the contingency fund. That is 1% of the annual budget. Prince William County, because of the unknown variables involved with sequestration and with the state requiring more from localities for VRS, is erring on the side of caution with what might appear to some to be more savings than are needed. We have about $20 million or 2% of total budget in the Revenue Stabilization Fund, twice as much as required to have the AAA bond rating. Great that we can handle emergencies. That is the fiscally responsible thing to do. If we do have contingencies, then we won’t dip below the designated level.
For Pete to criticize the county for saving too much money sounds out of touch and and frankly, fiscally irresponsible. Saving more than is needed is what my mother used to call a fine fault.
I have to compliment the Chairman….he was dead on in his response. I also liked how Covington said when they discuss this all on August 6th, for the contingency fund he asked for comparisons of other counties to include ones who are in the hole for funds so a comparison of PWC to other equivalent counties was a slick idea!
I did understand what Pete was saying about having so much money in savings that critical services could not be supported, but where is that line of being prepared. I think that Corey, and this is painful to say, was correct. At 2%, given the possible serious bumps in the road ahead, with VRS and Sequestration still hanging over us like a dark cloud, we have not hit that “over saving” mark, not by a long shot.
I thought I woke up in an alternate universe this morning and now know it’s true.
If you want to read galloping stupidity, go read the Forest blog. Now we have Peacor and her merry band of Budgeteers. Cripes!
That on top of the presentation that Pete beat up Corey and I am going to split a gut!
@Dr. Walter Bishop
I know….I know….but I do believe in recognizing when people do the right thing. Radcial departure from our usual attitude about Corey behavior seems to bring out new faces. Glad you stopped by, Doc.
@Moon-howler
Just watch your back. Corey Stewart is a classic shapeshifter. I know. I’ve dealt with many of them.
@Dr. Walter Bishop
There are many shape shifters out there. Hopefully Corey will continue to show leadership qualities. I think he got off track for a fairly long while.
@Moon-howler
Isn’t the term “shape-shifting politician” redundant and verbose? Can’t one simply assume that the adjective phrase is implicit in the meaning of the noun?
Corey really let Candland get under his skin, and it showed. He got out Tea-Partied!
Finally, a breakthrough with the board! Hopefully the rest of the board members will follow Corey’s lead and realize that they know what they’re doing and pay less attention to one angry blogger. They have an entire community to take care of. Not four angry Gainesters.
@middleman
Taking up the board’s time with that level of lack of understanding would get under anyone’s skin.
I thought Corey showed remarkable self control. I don’t usually say that about Corey.
Pete simply doesn’t understand the complexity of running a county from a monetary point of view. Saving too much money? What kind of statement is that?
The county can’t run on the say so of one inexperienced supervisor and the rantings and distortions of one angry blogger trying to manipulate said county.
I was embarrassed for Candland. He obviously has no clue about municipal budgets or much of anything on the government side of the aisle. He might be a wizz-boy at his Fortune 500 but in government he gets the dunce cap.
He just kept arguing and he was so off base. He just kept digging deeper and deeper. You could see the other supervisors just didn’t want to make eye contact.
Pete, take the earphone out of your ear, learn something about running govt and stop listening to whatever idiot is coaching you.
Wal-Mart, CVS, Fannie Mae and Jet Blue are Fortune 500 companies. So why does working for one make a person a financial whiz? Is he the CFO?
Left for “Einstein” over on the Forrest blog:
I won’t give him the right answer for a while. give it a day for him to realize that human beings make mistakes. Meanwhile, he can just look stupid.
Much is over his head and lots is over the head of the supervisor who the mentored there.
Too bad Petey always wants to work in an adversarial manner. Pete, sell others on your ideas, if they are sellable.
So is the math mistake fixed, Friar?
I just think Pete is getting bad bad advice. It isn’t serving him well or the people of the county well.
Corey rode the Tea-Party wave for great benefit, but now he’s getting bit in the arse by it, and I find that humorous. There’s no question Candland has no clue about government budgeting or management, but that’s true of most of the Tea-Partiers. Don’t bother them with complexities, if the founding fathers didn’t mention it, the government shouldn’t be doing it!
As a wise man once said, “the chickens have come home to roost.” Keep on clucking, Candland!
The tea party didn’t work out so well for Corey. Hopefully he has had an epiphany.
There’s a lot of that going around – I just HAVE to say that hopefully good well intentioned people realize they are being manipulated by mercenaries like the Koch Bros. Their sole allegiance is to their bank accounts.