5 responses to “Peachtree City approves 4-1 $56 million 2025 budget”

1. 

   My.02

   August 6, 2024

   One would be, do we need to own and operate a massive tennis center?

   But more broadly, can we trust the outcome of a flawed budget process? See “Council nastiness: Behind the scenes of massive Peachtree City budget battle” Steve Brown 7/11/24 and My.02’s comments of 7/12/24.

   Just as Democrats’ refusal to make common-sense changes to ensure the integrity of the voting process and voter eligibility fuels suspicion of election results, a surface-level PTC budget process where Madame Mayor and Council Member Destadio tried to silence and deny data to other members should not be taken without question.

   The idea that government budgets only go one way – – up, up, up – – is what has gotten the US in deep irreversible debt. Families and companies adjust to economic realities, and that sometimes means belts get tightened.

   We need our city representatives to also look seriously at how they spend our money. It’s up to them to prioritize spending, and at some point decide “enough”.

   Apparently, PTC isn’t there yet.

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   1. 

      trailsbeforewhales

      August 7, 2024

      I too am very concerned and angered by the council and the mayor’s actions to silence critics and push through initiatives that they want and citizens clearly don’t. We desperately need a new mayor who will be accountable to the citizens of PTC.

      That said, budgets typically do go up in healthy cities. It’s a sign of increased demand for services and increased revenue. Budgets also need to go up with inflation. I agree that we need to look carefully at where we’re spending, but I don’t think we should panic at the mere fact that the budget is going up. We need to look at specifics.

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      1. 

         blakeh95

         August 8, 2024

         And in particular for PTC, a lot of the “increase” is just accounting. The adopted budget counts ALL spending regardless of where it is funded from. So, as an example, the City is currently operating the Tennis Center. That shows up as an increase to the budget size–even though the income from the Tennis Center more than pays for its costs.

         Similarly, the new School Resource Officers increases the size of the budget–even though they are funded by an intergovernmental agreement with FCBOE.

         Another chunk of the increase is new fire officers. All of our council members say they want to maintain Public Safety positions–that means the budget increases.

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2. 

   gplanman

   August 6, 2024

   Anyone who complains about the size of PTC’s budget, please identify, specifically, those services and activities that you believe need to be eliminated.

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   1. 

      trailsbeforewhales

      August 7, 2024

      Agreed. I’m all for examining the budget closely and ensuring we’re not misusing taxpayer money, but the idea that we should yell about budgets going up without identifying where and why specific cuts should be made is reckless and useless.

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