Friday, May 04, 2007

Hold Onto Your Wallet!

The Democrats are coming the Democrats are coming! That should be the outcry across the state as the Democrat controlled legislature passed a bill late last week that allows local governments to raise the County Option Income Tax or COIT. Since our county government was overrun with Democrats in the 2004 election they have been attempting to convince our citizens that Monroe County is in need of a juvenile treatment facility. The cost to build such a facility has been speculated to run well into the millions and even more millions to operate. Similar facilities in other counties are rarely operating at full capacity and offer their services and facilities to other counties in an attempt to make ends meet. Facilities like these are consistantly a drain on available resources.

Throwing all caution to wind we have a stampede of Democrats hell bent on having a “facility of their own” as they say. At the forefront of this stampede is none other than Judge Welch, you know Peggy’s husband? Interestingly enough no one has been able to develop a realistic budget for this project up to this point. Everything is highly speculative even to the point that the paid experts don’t really seem to know how much it will cost. Due to the variety of the qualifications required to properly staff a facility like this and the need for highly specialized treatment for its occupants the treatment “our” children receive might just end up being far inferior to that of a properly trained and staffed facility in another county or state. Building a facility also goes against the advice of many experts that have indicated there is no way one community can afford to staff a facility with enough professionals to handle the wide variety of specialized treatment required to truly help these children. In order for some of these children to be adaquately treated they will still need to be sent to outsourced facilities. Just because the facility is not in our county or for that matter in our state doesn’t negatively impact the quality of treatment the children receive. As a matter of fact, in many cases the children need the separation from their parents and "friends" to get them away from a destructive environment that many times compounds and prolongs their rehabilitation.

What we need are elected officials that can manage to prioritize the County’s actual needs and then set a long-term course of corrective action in place and then put a funding mechanism in place that avoids raising taxes. What we currently have is a knee jerk reaction to a problem that hasn’t been fully explored. We have people that are looking for ways to spend our tax dollars when real problems like the jail are starring them in the face. Before it’s all over we will be saddled with paying for both a new juvenile facility and a new jail. Everyone should think twice before voting another Democrat into office.