The only thing on the Sioux Falls city council agenda this Tuesday is the joint budget hearings with Minnehaha county.

I was astonished by the 42 page budget presentation from Siouxland Museums. (Full DOC:  SX-Museum-budget-2018) Their total yearly budget is about $1.1 million!

What surprised me was with such a small budget the amount of detail in the presentation. They even figured out that each catalogued item in the collection cost taxpayers about $1.58 a year.

Why can’t the city present such detailed presentations to the public? I know that the council is probably privy to the big book, but why can’t we dig deeper? It often troubles me when councilors ask department heads questions about the budget at the meetings and they don’t have answers. Do they even read their own budgets? Do they know what’s in them? Could the director of Central Services tell us what the city pays for a roll of toilet paper?

Another reason the council should be involved with the budget process from the beginning and not at the end.

It really comes down to pinching pennies. While the county has to go through their budget with a fine tooth comb, the city is awash in so much money it seems they don’t care about the ‘little things’ like spending over $400 per episode of the mayor’s ‘Shut Up and Listen’ sessions.

I have often said the next mayor needs to be a fiscal hawk on day one and take a microscope and scalpel to the current budget on day one. That really should be the main job of the mayor besides employee management.

I’m a little weary that a motorcycle salesman could really look at those finer details.

4 Thoughts on “The difference between County & City budget hearings

  1. fried onions ass jenkins & brauts on August 18, 2017 at 8:14 pm said:

    i love when sjw and snowflakes
    are concerned or troubled
    using their own terminology
    it demonstrates their ineffectiveness
    see
    do
    aldo no

    iaal obg

  2. anonymous on August 19, 2017 at 7:28 am said:

    The City used to present detailed budget presentations in the past.

    The stream-lined version started when Mike Huether took office.

    Hmm……..

  3. Fluff Mc Fluffin on August 19, 2017 at 5:50 pm said:

    Wary…….

  4. The D@ily Spin on August 21, 2017 at 5:43 pm said:

    Isn’t it obvious that the county does a good job managing a budget five times less than the citys’? When there’s a credit card mayor, the limit is always maxed and the best hope is to make minimum payments until you get forced into bankruptcy.

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