Aspen Budgeting, Follow the Money, Letter to the editor 2012

I'm posting some old letters to the editor. This is so I can remember what I wrote, and to keep myself honest.  I'm posting them in the order I wrote them so this goes back a couple of years.

The more things change…..

This is from the Fall of 2012:

As I sit here and contemplate a beautiful blue sky and some fresh (much needed) snow on Ajax I'm led to wonder about our recent election and what the implications might be. Over numerous cups of coffee and discussions with my fellow citizens there was one recurring theme. That theme was a simple one "enough", enough taxes, enough spending, enough building. Now I admit most of the people I know here are not newcomers nor are they young. They've worked long and hard for their families and for the town  and they want stability for themselves and their families. I wonder if Sandy signals our 1893 will this level of climate change effect the ski industry the way the silver devaluation effected the mining industry?

Since I'm someone who tends to think sideways I went back to money. We have a proposed City budget of $88,000,000 (last I heard at the City Council meeting- I challenge you to find that number on the Aspen/Pitkin web site) and our population (according to the last census) was just over 6000. That means $14,666 in spending for each resident of Aspen. Over half of that budget is earmarked for capital projects.

Then I go back to the highest per capita City Budget spending in the US. That's New York City. For that I go to http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us and discover a proposed budget for 2010 of 47.1 billion. Divide that by the last census numbers for Manhattan of 8,244,910 and you get a per capita spending of  $5712 and change (the projected 2013 NYC budget comes closer to $7200 per capita).

New York has public hospitals, public housing, a  public city university (CUNY, free universal Pre-K  in fact 25% of the proposed budget is for education), a guaranteed right to shelter, rent subsidies, guaranteed summer jobs for teens, senior centers/meals/subsidies, parks, police, fire department, libraries, public transport, their own EPA (25%) and a personal favorite- one fantastic Film Commission (within the 10%  for housing and economic development).

So what is Aspen getting for 2x+ the price compared to New York?  How do we compare in Social services? Why has the electorate been asked to endorse more money for the library? the schools? the hydro plant? I would *love* to see a side by side comparison of construction costs of Burlingame to any NYC Union built Project.

The big difference IMO is that the NYC money comes from property taxes and an individual income tax. Aspen gets it's millions from sales tax and the real estate transfer tax. So, NYC gets it's money from it's citizens and we get our money from our visitors and our second home owners. In the end I believe this leads to a deep disconnect. The majority of the money isn't coming directly from the residents so we're not as proactive in overseeing how it's spent.  As the property tax issues begin to hit closer to home perhaps locals will begin to feel a little more proprietary and demand more social services for themselves. I believe this is the motivation behind all those expressions of "enough".

It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. Hubert H. Humphrey