Thursday, July 5, 2007

The joy of committees

Back from vacation, I have updates to pass along on two committees formed by the Dutchess Legislature.

The first is the county tax policy committee, which formed in January to figure out what to do if revenues fall short of expenses and how to distribute taxes fairly. This committee was supposed to submit a report by June 1, but several factors led to delays, including a mistakenly long public comment period and committee members' vacations, Chairman Joe Davis said.

Davis said this morning that a final report would be submitted soon. He never said he meant today. Sure enough, later today, a quick call to the county Legislature revealed that Davis had sped up the process and dropped off a copy of the report.

Its conclusions: Taxes raised by county government appear to be adequate and “as fair as can be expected given the complexity of and limitations on county tax policy."

That's more than has been produced yet by the county's 11-member WiFi committee, which is supposed to consider how the county might create a county-wide wireless Internet network.

The Legislature asked for a final report by Oct. 15 and a progress report by today. A quick call to the county Legislature revealed that the committee hasn't even met yet.

1 comment:

DutchessPreserver said...

ADEQUATE - what kind of a word is that to describe taxes? The Journal Poll on this question was ridiculous?

Taxes were MORE than adequate - Slick Willy made sure of that when his Budget for 2007 raised County Taxes 15% and he insured this budget's passage by giving his troops their marching orders during the budget process. Now it is time for the voters to give Slick Willy and his troops theirs!

The Joy of Committees is that those appointed to serve are appointed to come up with the result those appointing them wanted.

Committees such as the Tax Review Committee are weak, docile, amateurish, non-functioning - their findings meaningless.