Another tax increase coming for Mecklenburgers (06-04-2025--Hour2)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendarshow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for your support. Last night I watched the Mecklenberg County Board of Commissioners meeting they adopted their budget. I watched it all so you didn't have to. You're welcome. It is my service to you because I know that you are doing more productive things with your lives than I am, so I watch government meetings and then report back on them as part of my three hour workday. So they voted for the increase. This was a foregone conclusion, and we heard at the end of the last hour of SoundBite from Susan Rodriguez mcdell, who was citing information provided by the budget director Adrian Cox, who made a brief presentation PowerPoint. You can find this by the way. You can go to their website if you want to look up all of the slides from his presentation. His second slide or third slide was county expenses due to a void in state funding. Okay, so this is an important clarification. This is an important detail because you're going to hear the county commissioners make two different errors when talking about this data. Point. Number one, they're going to say federal end state, and it's not federal in state. It's state. The data being provided by the budget director is state funding only. That's number one. Number two is that they kept calling this all unfunded mandates, which I don't like unfunded mandates in general. If you're a governing body and you can mandate a lower body like the state down to the county or state down to the city, and the state says you have to do this thing, then if that thing is going to cost more money, then you should probably, you know, give them the funding to do the thing that you are requiring them to do now. But also keep in mind that these are the local jurisdictions are administrative units of the state. So if the state is saying this is something that we are requiring all local governments to do, because this is our principle. Right, then you have to comply, and that means you have to shift your priority. You have to say, I have to do these things that the state is requiring me to do, and that means I'm not going to get these other things that I want to get because I have to do these things. See, you would think, listening to the county commissioners last night that their entire budget is dictated by state and federal governments, and that's not the case. They have control over roughly two point one billion of their two point five billion dollar budget. They choose those priorities. As the board chairman said last night, this is the board's budget. They dictate what they spend the money on. They choose. Now that being said, the slide from the budget director titled due to a void in state funding, so he's not calling it solely unfunded mandates. In fact, the grand total is four hundred and eighty four million dollars of funding for next year that is needed due to mandates or a lack of sufficient funding from the state. What does that mean? A lack of sufficient funding from the state, We don't know. That's not defined. But you could throw in things like supplemental pay for teachers. They're allowed to offer supplemental pay. Mecklinberg County offers ten thousand dollars a year additional to the state salary base, so all teachers in Mecklinber County get an extra ten k. So whenever you hear the numbers, and we went over this yesterday, we were going over a bunch of numbers yesterday talking about teacher pay, you always have to add in in Mecklinberg County, you got to add in ten k. Is that a void in state funding? Is that lack of sufficient funding? So, in other words, you think you should be spending this amount of money the state is and giving it to you. So therefore that is in sufficient funding. There's supplemental wages and benefits for CPCC, the community college, court support for das, public defenders, trial court administrators, and the Clerk of Court. Nowhere near the numbers that CMS gets. Behavioral health support, scrap tire disposal, North Carolina pre K supplement, so again, additional supplemental funding for pre K, foster care, State County Special Assistance Program, in home aid services, adult day care services, gun permit and sex offender registration, juvenile detention. So the state is saying you have to do these things for it, let's say issuing gun permits, Well, we need more money to do that then, because it's not Gary McFadden's fault, we know that, right. So what the state is telling you is that this is a core service we are requiring you to fund. That's what they're telling you. You have to make this part of your budget. And you may not like that, but that's what the state is saying. That they want statewide this to be the rule, and that you have to allocate funds in your county budget for these operations. You now have two point one billion that you can tap for other stuff. That's your call. Laura Meyer, County Commissioner. Last night, she says they have cut all they can cut and it's because of unfunded mandates from the state. They are not funding operating support for cms, CPCC Supplemental Wages and Benefits, court support, behavioral health support, North Carolina pre K Supplement, Foster care Supplement, State and County Special Assistance Program, and the list goes on. I want our media to report on this. I just did it seen in the media, because that's how people are going to hear about it. We are. This is to the tune of four hundred and eighty five million dollars. And I'm speaking to the public now. Your federal and state representatives are not funding four hundred and eighty five million dollars that we have to absorb and pay for it. Therefore, we're cutting funds to programs like and I'm going to list a few, said Kimmel, which helps children with behavioral health, Center for Child Health, Center for Community Transitions, Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, Crisis Assistance Ministry Prospera of North Carolina Rain read Charlotte et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It goes on. These are wonderful programs that are working with the people north of Charlotte, of Meckinberg County that are not going to be getting money this year because of our state and federal program because of our state and federal representatives. To the media, you should be reporting on this all the time. This should be common knowledge. People should know this in the public. To the public, you should demand better of your elected officials at the state and federal level. Hold them accountable. Yeah. See, so here's the problem with that. Two point five billion dollar budget. If let's say nineteen twenty percent are mandates or not just mandates, remember, as the budget director called them, lack of sufficient funding from the state to pay for things that you want to pay for, like the supplements. That's your choice. So but even if I take your numbers and say nineteen to twenty percent are mandates, why is the state responsible for the eighty one percent of the local budget priorities you're telling me out of the eighty eighty one percent of the remaining budget. That's the state legislature's fault. That's the federal government's fault. It's not your fault, right. I saw this in Ashville. I have seen this in local governments my entire career. Always blame some other entity for why they can't make their budget balance without tax increases. Don't blame us. We didn't do it. It's somebody else's fault. We didn't want to have to spend all of this money on the NAACP conference. We didn't want to spend all this money on the pride parade. Oh no, you did see you prioritize those things. And while those things only amount to two hundred k for the NAACP conference for next year, sorry for this year, or one hundred twenty five k for the Pride stuff next year. It's not millions, but those are examples that they talked about last night. And well they talked about the NAACP one, the hundred twenty five k for the Pride thing that came out of the agenda. But the point is the same is that these are items that they have chosen to fund, and they don't want you to blame and them for their choices. They want you to blame somebody else. I am too bright for your gasline. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why. Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground news a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot Ground dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Email to Pete at the Pete calendarshow dot Com from Walter who says did the county learn nothing from Doge? No, they did not. Ralph, Welcome to the program. Hello Ralph, what's up? Hey, Pete. I have to go to the government center on a regular basis, and you know, I have to go through security and you have to inky your pockets out and all that type of stuff. But how are they getting these crickets in? I'm the only things that were allowed were briefcases full of fifty K and you know when Patrick Cannon was there, But I don't get the crickets in there. That's a very good question. They got the security that you got to walk through the metal detectors, although the crickets wouldn't set that off. But yeah, I don't know how they would have gone through there with boxes filled with insects unless they just had them in like a backpack and through the backpack through the metal detector and that came through clean. I don't know. But then again, I don't know how an employee over at the Sheriff's office smuggled a knife in and stambed or coworker at the rest processing center either. Well, you know that's not my fault, mcfahnin's situation. Correct, Yes, that is true, Ralph. I appreciate the call, buddy, thank you. It's a very good question. I don't know the answer to it, all right, So let's get back to another audio clip here. This is Elaine Powell, another progressive Democrat on the County Commission, and she says, look, people, we have cut to the bone, to the bone. All these years, County leadership, Dina County leadership have been cutting, cutting, cutting, and we are bare bones. So there isn't a department that didn't make a painful cut. Nobody's doing the snoopy dance about how bare bones it is, where many departments are struggling to get by, and cuts had to be made. Taxpayer dollars cannot pay for everything. Corporations need to step up. It's really time for them to step up. And I wanted to make a correction because everybody keeps saying state and federal This slide number three, which needs to be on the front page of every newspaper and every news channel, Slide number three is a void in state funding, not state in federal state. And so when they put that kind of burden on Mecklenberg County, with all of the differences the needs that we have with such a populated county, there is no choice, like, if you want to provide valuable services to the community that we serve, if you're committed to stability of local government, we have done it. We have gone as bare bones as you can possibly go. And we still need to have a tax increase for first order priorities. All right, So a couple things their note, she said, if you want the services, they've cut to the bare bone. But if you want the services, she lumps those all the services of their funding. She lumps them into first order priorities. See again, there's a reason that they want that slide on the front page of the newspaper and all of the TV stations. It's because it tells their side of the story. It doesn't, and they leave out the rest of the story, right, They leave out the part where they control eighty percent of the two and a half billion, and they've decided to prioritize all of the other things that that two point one billion pays for. Those are all their choices, such as the now canceled has been canceled for a long time, The Mecklenburgers. I just told Bernie about the Mecklenburgers. This was a classic, a classic TV show. It only aired for I think maybe two or three seasons or something. It was not a long running show. It was like a firework, you know, flew too close to the sun. And it was on the local government channel, Channel sixteen, cable access only. This was about fifteen years ago, twenty years ago whenever it was, and they decided to create like a sitcom on the government channel and it was called The Mecklenburgers. Suzanne Stevens, former anchor at WSOCTV. She had retired at that point, but she was on the show. Robert D. Rayford, legendary radio guy. He was on the show, and they would engage in various hijink since such, while also informing and educating the public about all of the wonderful services that Mecklenberg County provides. Now, if that isn't mining gold for a TV show, I don't know what is that was their priority? Or how about a RoboCop? This was my favorite, a RoboCop. It didn't cost taxpayers a lot of money. It was a pitily little grand maybe twenty thirty, forty k whatever. And this one got added in when Democrats first retook control of the Mecklenburg County Commission I want to say this was probably some time around four or so or maybe eight. They retook control from the Republicans. They were in control of the budget process, and then County Commissioner Dan Bishop wanted to see if the Democrats would actually vote against anything, any of the nonprofit asks that came before the commissioners, and so he took the most ridiculous ask, which was some guy dressed in a leotard working out with kids. I know how it sounds, and it was called a RoboCop and he would do aerobics with the kids on the Government Channel. And so Dan Bishop offered it up and said, oh, you know, childhood obesity, blah blah blah. Gave like some cover story to why he thought this was a valuable thing, and every Democrat voted for it, and he voted against it, and he's like, I just did this to see if there was anything you would vote against, and there isn't. There's literally nothing you will say no to. And a RoboCop then hit hit the airwave, well, the cable waves. I think he lasted like two seasons. Not a lot of people watch the Government Channel. I don't know what to tell you. Here's a great idea. How about making an ass escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. 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Call her text eight two eight, three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins of Ashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. When Mecklenburgers family Manlan Gully. Mecklenburg, I wasn't lying, and yes, lend you a hand. Indeed one weird everywhere, well I mean in Mecklenburg proper, not everywhere. Yeah, you're welcome for that. Earworm. That was the that was the theme song to the Mecklenburgers. Now the Mecklenburgers got canceled. Let's see how many seasons did they have here? Well, how many episodes did they? Wait? What thirty two thirty? What thirty four episodes they produced of this program and it's no longer on the air or on the cable. Okay. So I'm not blaming the current county commissioners obviously for this spending priority, but it's an example they chose at the time, The county commissioners chose at the time to fund this program. The County commission now chooses to fund various programs. They control eighty percent, eighty one percent of the two point five billion dollars in spending. So them wanting me to focus on the void from the state. Oh, they don't give us supplemental funding for teacher pay. That you can do teacher pay on your own. The state is not required to give you that. But they're calling that a void in state funding. So yeah, I would pick a bone, a bear bone, you might say, with the commissioners who want me to blame the state for all of their priorities that they are funding now. The only no vote last night was Arthur Griffin, now Arthur Griffin. When I first started as a reporter here in Charlotte for WBT, Arthur Griffin was on the Charlotte Mecklenburg school Board. He became chairman of the school board, did that for years, and then he retired off and was in the private sector, I believe, and then he came back a couple of years ago. I think coincidentally when I returned. It's not my fault though I did not do this, but Arthur Griffin came back as a county commissioner. I think he may have been appointed to fill an unexpired term, but I don't recall. And so Arthur Griffin comes back and now he's a county commissioner. He was the only no vote last night, and by golly, I agree with Arthur Griffin. I know we all want a stronger Macklinberry County, but warning progress is not enough. We must define outcome goals, smart goals, aligned spending with impact, and be honest about what is working and what's not colleagues. Based on those three principles, our system is broken and because of that, I'm not able to support this budget as well as the tax increase. I have a lot of experience. I put fifty years here, but I won't tell you that think I'm too old, a lot of experience in this process advocating for justice. Let me tell you some Avalarne. There will never be enough tax payer of money to do all the just that we seek. So we get the biggest impact for the dollars we have. And certainly understand taxes are necessary for education, public health, for infrastructure. You know, I've been around for a moment or two, but in the last FY twenty four, twenty five, twenty six we've increased local spending by two hundred million dollars in that Going back to that third point, be honest about what's working and what's not. One of our budget priorities is educational attainment. In twenty sixteen, we engaged in mech pre K for the sole purpose of kindergarten readiness. All right, And every year I've been on this board, I've asked about how many mech pre K kids are ready for kindergarten and I have not received that, and nor have any of us received. Any date. Well, I won't say any data, but data to support the answer the question are ours ready for kindergarten CMS? I love CMS to deak that's my school, that's my school system, but they share data with us. Recently, I asked how many students are graduating with less than a two point zero in the class of twenty twenty four. I spoke to our chair of the school board a week or so ago to ask if the numbers that were given to all of us was duplicated or unduplicated. I haven't heard back, so I'll take it as face value. Thirty nine hundred and forty students graduated out of the class of ninety six hundred and seventy four with a GPA a grade point average of less than two point zero. That's forty percent of the graduating class. These students are not going to be successfully employed and listed or enroll, and where's the return on the investment for our tax payer. We debated the other day about giving tax dollars to a nonprofit for a duple community financial literacy program. Despite living in the second largest banking system in America with dozens of banks and financial institutions that are required by federal law under the Community Reinvestment Act to provide free financial literacy to low income residents. Rather than encouraging collaboration and leveraging of these existing resources, we once again are reaching into the taxpayer's pocket. We owe it to the taxpayers to expect a reasonable return on their investment. We owe it most to our vulnerable to demand outcomes, you know, dependency versus empowerment, safety nets versus self sufficiency. It's going to take a mindset, mindset change for us. Indeed, it's going to take a mindset change that is astounding. Forty percent of students are graduating with less than a two point zero. I didn't even know you could with less than a two point zero, but apparently you can. Forty percent. Is that working? Is that system working? We need more money? Right? How much more? More? Just more? There will never be enough taxpayer money ever. He also talked about the increase in local spending to CMS two hundred million dollars over two years three years now. I said this quote or this stat rather to somebody. I don't remember if it was on the air, if it was in private life or whatever, but I mentioned it, and they were shocked to learn when I said that CMS their enrollment is basically flat. What No, that's not possible. So I went, just out of curiosity, I went and I pulled the ADM the average daily membership for CMS, and CMS has this data available? You can find it for every single school and the district itself. What do you think the change in CMS student enrollment has been over the last ten years? Think about it all? Right? So spring is here a time of renewal and celebrations. You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries, and the special days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to last a lifetime. 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I asked the question, what do you think has been the enrollment change in CMS over the last decade, because as you just heard Arthur Griffin, former chairman longtime chairman of the Charlotte Mecklenberg School Board point out that CMS has gotten an additional two hundred million dollars over the last two to three years net two hundred million. In fact, Hang on second, I've got last year's budget announcement. So this was for the twenty twenty five budget, they increased spending one hundred and forty million dollars. That was a five point nine per cent increase over the twenty twenty four budget. Okay, and they fully funded cms's budget request with an additional forty six and a half million Okay. This year they fully fund cms's budget request of twenty eight million dollars. That is a four point four percent increase for total CMS operating funding of six hundred and sixty six point one million dollars, and it says in their press release that the increase will primarily supplement teacher salaries, and then they give a bullet point breakdown of what the funding goes to, and interestingly enough, it does not actually primarily supplement teacher salaries, so that's a lie, okay. Out of the press release, it says nine point nine for salary increases for locally funded staff, eight point three to address below market salaries and increase compensation relative to years of service. CMS they give you more money the longer you've been there, so people complaining about the state not doing that, CMS does that with their supplements. So that's nine point nine plus eight point three plus another eight point one to increase local supplements, and you add all of that together and you end up with twenty six point three million dollars. But thirty three million is for capital spending for repairs and maintenance of existing facilities. So no, the increase is not primarily supplementing teacher salaries. It's primarily going to fix and maintain the buildings that you guys said we needed to build for all of the students over the last fifty years, right, all the bonds. You're coming at us with another bond, You're going to be asking for more bond funding. Well, obviously we need it for all of the influx of students. Now I'm old enough to remember when CMS was the largest school district in the state. We are no longer that WAKE is now the largest. Right, So if you go back and look at the average daily membership the EIGHTYM they are required. CMS is required to report EIGHTM to the state on a monthly basis. EIGHTM is an average of membership across the reporting period and is the key metric for state funding allocations. That's why they want more kids in the schools so they get more money from the state. So EIGHTYM ten years ago, in the twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen school year was one hundred forty four thousand and seven eighty three, so one hundred and forty five thousand students. It went up the next year, it went up the next year, It went up just a little bit in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen. Then you start seeing a decline after twenty nineteen twenty twenty. Hmmm, did something happen in twenty twenty because it went from one hundred and forty five almost one hundred and forty six thousand, down to one hundred and thirty eight thousand, and then it dropped again in twenty twenty one. It went back up in twenty twenty two, twenty three, and then it went back down last year, and now it went back up by a little bit this year. And I say a little bit, I'm talking one thousand less than a thousand kids. So what I mean since covid CMS enrollment has flatlined, now maybe it keeps going up and up and up. That's possible. It could keep going up. I don't know. But if ten years ago you had something on the order of well not even ten years ago, you had like seven thousand more students than you have now, that indicate that you would require less money. See, this is the problem. There's always an excuse to spend more. You either have too many kids, so we have to build more and pay more, or you have too few kids and so now they have different needs, so we have to build more, pay more. There's never a reason to cut with these people. And by the way, the last point here on the tax rate, Arthur Griffin made this point, and I agree with him completely, and he knows what he's talking about, and he knows these political arguments. He used to make them as a member of the school board. Now he's on the county Commission, demanding accountability, and so he sees through this narrative about, well, we have the lowest tax rate among our surrounding counties. As we talk about the tax rate less different than the tax build as you get your property reevaluated, the tax rate could be ten cents per one hundred. But if your properly escalates over one thousand percent, and you all know the decrescence being impacted by that uneven escalation, I can't support this tax rate. Given those three principles that I suggested to your original. Think right, the three principles were defined, defined smart goals. Defined goals, align the money with the impact right, best bang for the buck, and then be honest about what is working and what is not working. And by the way, in the press release from the county, the twenty six budget works to achieve several broad goals. Number one, fund programs and services that align with the board's priorities. They admit in the first bullet point of their press release. These are their priorities including environmental stewardship, health equity and wellness, right reducing racial disp These are their goals. You don't get to offload the blame for the property tax increase to the state. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.