ON PAGE 1 of Friday’s newspaper, The Gazette compared budgets for the city of Emporia, Lyon County and the Emporia school district from this year to those of 1986. If you missed the budget story, it can be found online at www.emporia.com/yearbudget.html.
The goal of looking at the budgets over a 20-year period is to get a picture of where the organizations’ budgets are going.
The information showed that the school district has doubled its employees from 465 to 802 over 20 years even though the enrollment only increased 186 students. The county budget general fund increased 251 percent since 1986 and its overall budget increased 97 percent.
Out of the three entities, the city kept its numbers closest to the 1986 levels. The city has the same number of employees, 291, the general budget increased 17 percent and overall budget increased 13 percent.
So how do you feel about these numbers — are they too high or too low?
The budgets for these organizations are complicated, but we hope this simplified approach to presenting the numbers will spark conversations. If people are not happy, they need to voice their opinions and remember that change is possible.
On Nov. 1, the community will vote for whether county government should change by hiring a county manager, which would make it function similar to the city of Emporia. There have been discussions about whether a county manager is really needed. The Gazette’s 20-year budget comparisons provides a clear example of why hiring a county manager might be beneficial.
The reason the budget information is important is because taxpayers have to pay taxes to cover their budgets. The bigger the budget, the more we pay.
When taxes are lower, people have more money to spend in the community and it is easier to recruit industries and business to town.
By being interested in our community, keeping informed and working together, we can make our community a better place to live, work and play.
Christopher White Walker
Editor & Publisher