Budget Forum

Introductory note:  I still don't know all the candidates by sight.  If you were are the budget hearing and I didn't see you, please leave a comment.

OK, back to the blog:

You can gauge the level of interest in next year's city budget by the fact that many of the candidates for city offices didn't bother to attend tonight's budget forum.  Of the mayoral candidates, I saw only Dan Corbin (Dan's a CPA and a lawyer: this is his meat and potatoes), and Billy Workman.  Of the 16 at-large candidates for City Council, I saw Dan Kott, Jonathan Okray, Ralph Cossey, Jim Butler, Doris Mims-Owens and Mark Manning.  District 1 candidate Jason Lawhorn and District 2 candidate Frankie Williams were there, too.

I think 8 people spoke at the hearing.  Several of them were candidates.  Rather than trying to filter the commentary for you, I'll refer you to Dan Kott's videos of the meeting at the EyesOfTexas channel on YouTube.

This being Killeen, having 8 people out of 130,000 express an opinion on the city budget has to be called a success.  If you weren't there (and the odds are heavy that you were not), you can still send in your views by filling in a form on the city web site.

There are some givens about the budget that you should keep in mind:

• It's huge.  Our little town will spend over $258 million -- a quarter of a billion dollars -- this year.  That's about $2000 for every man, woman and child in Killeen.
• It's mostly non-discretionary.  We have to repay our debt; build streets; provide people and equipment to clean the water, take away the sewage and garbage, catch the crooks, put out the fires, mow the rights-of-way, collect the taxes and fees, etc., etc; and buy books for the library.
• There are a lot of demands on the discretionary part.  That will be the subject of tomorrow's blog: the proposed Strategic Priorities for 2012/3.