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Government budgets, even those at the local level, seldom seem to get any smaller. Year after year, spending creep cuts deeper into taxpayers' pockets.
It has to stop, Jefferson County commissioners believe. They are putting department heads on notice that a big crackdown is coming -- next year.
Assuming commissioners are not being frugal now would be incorrect. Seldom do department heads get every dollar they seek. No doubt that will be the case this week when commissioners adopt a budget for the coming year.
But that spending plan will be a stretch, Commissioner Dave Maple said last week. "We barely made it, and it can't happen again next year," he warned.
Commissioner Tom Gentile agreed, explaining, "There has been a disturbing trend where departments have hired people and given raises and come to us after the fact within the next year and said, 'We need more money.' It just can't continue."
Why not? Bureaucrats at all levels employ various tactics to drag more and more money out of taxpayers' pockets. We have all heard of one -- spend it or lose it. That technique is used toward the end of fiscal years, when officials find they may -- horrors! -- not spend all the cash they have been allotted for the 12-month period.
Throughout their departments or agencies, the word goes out: Need something? Just want something? Put in a request for it. If we don't spend the entire budget this year, we'll get cut next time around.
Often, it works.
Don't get us wrong. Much of the time, such spending does benefit the public. But a cost-benefit analysis sometimes would disclose that the public could have done without the expenditure quite nicely. Meanwhile, taxpayers have to dig deeper -- and often, genuinely critical needs are not met.
"Every year for probably the last 10 years, we have been able to handle increases," Maple said last week. "But that can't continue to go on. I want to give a fair warning shot a year in advance that you have to come in tighter next year," he warned department heads.
Good. Let us hope all involved heed the warning. The key to all this will be commissioners' willingness in sticking to their pledge. They should do just that.