Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
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to your smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so
much for your support. Last night I watched the Mecklenberg
County Board of Commissioners meeting they adopted their budget. I
watched it all so you didn't have to. You're welcome.
It is my service to you because I know that
you are doing more productive things with your lives than
I am, so I watch government meetings and then report
back on them as part of my three hour workday.
So they voted for the increase. This was a foregone conclusion,
and we heard at the end of the last hour
of SoundBite from Susan Rodriguez mcdell, who was citing information
provided by the budget director Adrian Cox, who made a
brief presentation PowerPoint. You can find this by the way.
You can go to their website if you want to
look up all of the slides from his presentation. His
second slide or third slide was county expenses due to
a void in state funding. Okay, so this is an
important clarification. This is an important detail because you're going
to hear the county commissioners make two different errors when
talking about this data. Point. Number one, they're going to
say federal end state, and it's not federal in state.
It's state. The data being provided by the budget director
is state funding only. That's number one. Number two is
that they kept calling this all unfunded mandates, which I
don't like unfunded mandates in general. If you're a governing
body and you can mandate a lower body like the
state down to the county or state down to the city,
and the state says you have to do this thing,
then if that thing is going to cost more money,
then you should probably, you know, give them the funding
to do the thing that you are requiring them to
do now. But also keep in mind that these are
the local jurisdictions are administrative units of the state. So
if the state is saying this is something that we
are requiring all local governments to do, because this is
our principle. Right, then you have to comply, and that
means you have to shift your priority. You have to say,
I have to do these things that the state is
requiring me to do, and that means I'm not going
to get these other things that I want to get
because I have to do these things. See, you would think,
listening to the county commissioners last night that their entire
budget is dictated by state and federal governments, and that's
not the case. They have control over roughly two point
one billion of their two point five billion dollar budget.
They choose those priorities. As the board chairman said last night,
this is the board's budget. They dictate what they spend
the money on. They choose. Now that being said, the
slide from the budget director titled due to a void
in state funding, so he's not calling it solely unfunded mandates.
In fact, the grand total is four hundred and eighty
four million dollars of funding for next year that is
needed due to mandates or a lack of sufficient funding
from the state. What does that mean? A lack of
sufficient funding from the state, We don't know. That's not defined.
But you could throw in things like supplemental pay for teachers.
They're allowed to offer supplemental pay. Mecklinberg County offers ten
thousand dollars a year additional to the state salary base,
so all teachers in Mecklinber County get an extra ten k.
So whenever you hear the numbers, and we went over
this yesterday, we were going over a bunch of numbers
yesterday talking about teacher pay, you always have to add
in in Mecklinberg County, you got to add in ten k.
Is that a void in state funding? Is that lack
of sufficient funding? So, in other words, you think you
should be spending this amount of money the state is
and giving it to you. So therefore that is in
sufficient funding. There's supplemental wages and benefits for CPCC, the
community college, court support for das, public defenders, trial court administrators,
and the Clerk of Court. Nowhere near the numbers that
CMS gets. Behavioral health support, scrap tire disposal, North Carolina
pre K supplement, so again, additional supplemental funding for pre K,
foster care, State County Special Assistance Program, in home aid services,
adult day care services, gun permit and sex offender registration,
juvenile detention. So the state is saying you have to
do these things for it, let's say issuing gun permits, Well,
we need more money to do that then, because it's
not Gary McFadden's fault, we know that, right. So what
the state is telling you is that this is a
core service we are requiring you to fund. That's what
they're telling you. You have to make this part of
your budget. And you may not like that, but that's
what the state is saying. That they want statewide this
to be the rule, and that you have to allocate
funds in your county budget for these operations. You now
have two point one billion that you can tap for
other stuff. That's your call. Laura Meyer, County Commissioner. Last night,
she says they have cut all they can cut and
it's because of unfunded mandates from the state.
Speaker 2: They are not funding operating support for cms, CPCC Supplemental
Wages and Benefits, court support, behavioral health support, North Carolina
pre K Supplement, Foster care Supplement, State and County Special
Assistance Program, and the list goes on. I want our
media to report on this. I just did it seen
in the media, because that's how people are going to
hear about it.
Speaker 3: We are.
Speaker 2: This is to the tune of four hundred and eighty
five million dollars. And I'm speaking to the public now.
Your federal and state representatives are not funding four hundred
and eighty five million dollars that we have to absorb
and pay for it. Therefore, we're cutting funds to programs
like and I'm going to list a few, said Kimmel,
which helps children with behavioral health, Center for Child Health,
Center for Community Transitions, Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, Crisis
Assistance Ministry Prospera of North Carolina Rain read Charlotte et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera. It goes on. These are wonderful
programs that are working with the people north of Charlotte,
of Meckinberg County that are not going to be getting
money this year because of our state and federal program
because of our state and federal representatives. To the media,
you should be reporting on this all the time. This
should be common knowledge. People should know this in the public.
To the public, you should demand better of your elected
officials at the state and federal level. Hold them accountable.
Speaker 1: Yeah. See, so here's the problem with that. Two point
five billion dollar budget. If let's say nineteen twenty percent
are mandates or not just mandates, remember, as the budget
director called them, lack of sufficient funding from the state
to pay for things that you want to pay for,
like the supplements. That's your choice. So but even if
I take your numbers and say nineteen to twenty percent
are mandates, why is the state responsible for the eighty
one percent of the local budget priorities you're telling me
out of the eighty eighty one percent of the remaining budget.
That's the state legislature's fault. That's the federal government's fault.
It's not your fault, right. I saw this in Ashville.
I have seen this in local governments my entire career.
Always blame some other entity for why they can't make
their budget balance without tax increases. Don't blame us. We
didn't do it. It's somebody else's fault. We didn't want
to have to spend all of this money on the
NAACP conference. We didn't want to spend all this money
on the pride parade. Oh no, you did see you
prioritize those things. And while those things only amount to
two hundred k for the NAACP conference for next year,
sorry for this year, or one hundred twenty five k
for the Pride stuff next year. It's not millions, but
those are examples that they talked about last night. And
well they talked about the NAACP one, the hundred twenty
five k for the Pride thing that came out of
the agenda. But the point is the same is that
these are items that they have chosen to fund, and
they don't want you to blame and them for their choices.
They want you to blame somebody else. I am too
bright for your gasline. All right. If you're listening to
this show, you know I try to keep up with
all sorts of current events, and I know you do too,
And you've probably heard me say get your news from
multiple sources.
Speaker 3: Why.
Speaker 1: Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is
why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an
app and it's a website and it combines news from
around the world in one place so you can compare
coverage and verify information. You can check it out at
check dot ground dot news slash Pete. I put the
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news a few months ago and more recently chose to
work with them as an affiliate because it lets me
see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The
blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by
the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot
Ground dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and
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supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent.
Email to Pete at the Pete calendarshow dot Com from
Walter who says did the county learn nothing from Doge? No,
they did not. Ralph, Welcome to the program. Hello Ralph,
what's up?
Speaker 3: Hey, Pete. I have to go to the government center
on a regular basis, and you know, I have to
go through security and you have to inky your pockets
out and all that type of stuff. But how are
they getting these crickets in? I'm the only things that
were allowed were briefcases full of fifty K and you
know when Patrick Cannon was there, But I don't get
the crickets in there.
Speaker 1: That's a very good question. They got the security that
you got to walk through the metal detectors, although the
crickets wouldn't set that off. But yeah, I don't know
how they would have gone through there with boxes filled
with insects unless they just had them in like a
backpack and through the backpack through the metal detector and
that came through clean. I don't know. But then again,
I don't know how an employee over at the Sheriff's
office smuggled a knife in and stambed or coworker at
the rest processing center either.
Speaker 3: Well, you know that's not my fault, mcfahnin's situation.
Speaker 1: Correct, Yes, that is true, Ralph. I appreciate the call, buddy,
thank you. It's a very good question. I don't know
the answer to it, all right, So let's get back
to another audio clip here. This is Elaine Powell, another
progressive Democrat on the County Commission, and she says, look, people,
we have cut to the bone, to the bone.
Speaker 4: All these years, County leadership, Dina County leadership have been cutting, cutting, cutting,
and we are bare bones. So there isn't a department
that didn't make a painful cut. Nobody's doing the snoopy
dance about how bare bones it is, where many departments
are struggling to get by, and cuts had to be made.
Taxpayer dollars cannot pay for everything. Corporations need to step up.
It's really time for them to step up. And I
wanted to make a correction because everybody keeps saying state
and federal This slide number three, which needs to be
on the front page of every newspaper and every news channel,
Slide number three is a void in state funding, not
state in federal state. And so when they put that
kind of burden on Mecklenberg County, with all of the
differences the needs that we have with such a populated county,
there is no choice, like, if you want to provide
valuable services to the community that we serve, if you're
committed to stability of local government, we have done it.
We have gone as bare bones as you can possibly go.
And we still need to have a tax increase for
first order priorities.
Speaker 1: All right, So a couple things their note, she said,
if you want the services, they've cut to the bare bone.
But if you want the services, she lumps those all
the services of their funding. She lumps them into first
order priorities. See again, there's a reason that they want
that slide on the front page of the newspaper and
all of the TV stations. It's because it tells their
side of the story. It doesn't, and they leave out
the rest of the story, right, They leave out the
part where they control eighty percent of the two and
a half billion, and they've decided to prioritize all of
the other things that that two point one billion pays for.
Those are all their choices, such as the now canceled
has been canceled for a long time, The Mecklenburgers. I
just told Bernie about the Mecklenburgers. This was a classic,
a classic TV show. It only aired for I think
maybe two or three seasons or something. It was not
a long running show. It was like a firework, you know,
flew too close to the sun. And it was on
the local government channel, Channel sixteen, cable access only. This
was about fifteen years ago, twenty years ago whenever it was,
and they decided to create like a sitcom on the
government channel and it was called The Mecklenburgers. Suzanne Stevens,
former anchor at WSOCTV. She had retired at that point,
but she was on the show. Robert D. Rayford, legendary
radio guy. He was on the show, and they would
engage in various hijink since such, while also informing and
educating the public about all of the wonderful services that
Mecklenberg County provides. Now, if that isn't mining gold for
a TV show, I don't know what is that was
their priority? Or how about a RoboCop? This was my favorite,
a RoboCop. It didn't cost taxpayers a lot of money.
It was a pitily little grand maybe twenty thirty, forty
k whatever. And this one got added in when Democrats
first retook control of the Mecklenburg County Commission I want
to say this was probably some time around four or
so or maybe eight. They retook control from the Republicans.
They were in control of the budget process, and then
County Commissioner Dan Bishop wanted to see if the Democrats
would actually vote against anything, any of the nonprofit asks
that came before the commissioners, and so he took the
most ridiculous ask, which was some guy dressed in a
leotard working out with kids. I know how it sounds,
and it was called a RoboCop and he would do
aerobics with the kids on the Government Channel. And so
Dan Bishop offered it up and said, oh, you know,
childhood obesity, blah blah blah. Gave like some cover story
to why he thought this was a valuable thing, and
every Democrat voted for it, and he voted against it,
and he's like, I just did this to see if
there was anything you would vote against, and there isn't.
There's literally nothing you will say no to. And a
RoboCop then hit hit the airwave, well, the cable waves.
I think he lasted like two seasons. Not a lot
of people watch the Government Channel. I don't know what
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Speaker 4: When Mecklenburgers family Manlan Gully.
Speaker 1: Mecklenburg, I wasn't lying, and yes, lend you a hand.
Indeed one weird everywhere, well I mean in Mecklenburg proper,
not everywhere. Yeah, you're welcome for that. Earworm. That was
the that was the theme song to the Mecklenburgers. Now
the Mecklenburgers got canceled. Let's see how many seasons did
they have here? Well, how many episodes did they? Wait?
What thirty two thirty? What thirty four episodes they produced
of this program and it's no longer on the air
or on the cable. Okay. So I'm not blaming the
current county commissioners obviously for this spending priority, but it's
an example they chose at the time, The county commissioners
chose at the time to fund this program. The County
commission now chooses to fund various programs. They control eighty percent,
eighty one percent of the two point five billion dollars
in spending. So them wanting me to focus on the
void from the state. Oh, they don't give us supplemental
funding for teacher pay. That you can do teacher pay
on your own. The state is not required to give
you that. But they're calling that a void in state funding.
So yeah, I would pick a bone, a bear bone,
you might say, with the commissioners who want me to
blame the state for all of their priorities that they
are funding now. The only no vote last night was
Arthur Griffin, now Arthur Griffin. When I first started as
a reporter here in Charlotte for WBT, Arthur Griffin was
on the Charlotte Mecklenburg school Board. He became chairman of
the school board, did that for years, and then he
retired off and was in the private sector, I believe,
and then he came back a couple of years ago.
I think coincidentally when I returned. It's not my fault
though I did not do this, but Arthur Griffin came
back as a county commissioner. I think he may have
been appointed to fill an unexpired term, but I don't recall.
And so Arthur Griffin comes back and now he's a
county commissioner. He was the only no vote last night,
and by golly, I agree with Arthur Griffin.
Speaker 5: I know we all want a stronger Macklinberry County, but
warning progress is not enough. We must define outcome goals,
smart goals, aligned spending with impact, and be honest about
what is working and what's not colleagues. Based on those
three principles, our system is broken and because of that,
I'm not able to support this budget as well as
the tax increase. I have a lot of experience. I
put fifty years here, but I won't tell you that
think I'm too old, a lot of experience in this
process advocating for justice. Let me tell you some Avalarne.
There will never be enough tax payer of money to
do all the just that we seek. So we get
the biggest impact for the dollars we have. And certainly
understand taxes are necessary for education, public health, for infrastructure.
You know, I've been around for a moment or two,
but in the last FY twenty four, twenty five, twenty
six we've increased local spending by two hundred million dollars
in that Going back to that third point, be honest
about what's working and what's not. One of our budget
priorities is educational attainment. In twenty sixteen, we engaged in
mech pre K for the sole purpose of kindergarten readiness.
All right, And every year I've been on this board,
I've asked about how many mech pre K kids are
ready for kindergarten and I have not received that, and
nor have any of us received.
Speaker 4: Any date.
Speaker 5: Well, I won't say any data, but data to support
the answer the question are ours ready for kindergarten CMS?
I love CMS to deak that's my school, that's my
school system, but they share data with us. Recently, I
asked how many students are graduating with less than a
two point zero in the class of twenty twenty four.
I spoke to our chair of the school board a
week or so ago to ask if the numbers that
were given to all of us was duplicated or unduplicated.
I haven't heard back, so I'll take it as face value.
Thirty nine hundred and forty students graduated out of the
class of ninety six hundred and seventy four with a
GPA a grade point average of less than two point zero.
That's forty percent of the graduating class. These students are
not going to be successfully employed and listed or enroll,
and where's the return on the investment for our tax payer.
We debated the other day about giving tax dollars to
a nonprofit for a duple community financial literacy program. Despite
living in the second largest banking system in America with
dozens of banks and financial institutions that are required by
federal law under the Community Reinvestment Act to provide free
financial literacy to low income residents. Rather than encouraging collaboration
and leveraging of these existing resources, we once again are
reaching into the taxpayer's pocket. We owe it to the
taxpayers to expect a reasonable return on their investment. We
owe it most to our vulnerable to demand outcomes, you know,
dependency versus empowerment, safety nets versus self sufficiency. It's going
to take a mindset, mindset change for us.
Speaker 1: Indeed, it's going to take a mindset change that is astounding.
Forty percent of students are graduating with less than a
two point zero. I didn't even know you could with
less than a two point zero, but apparently you can.
Forty percent. Is that working? Is that system working? We
need more money?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: How much more? More? Just more? There will never be
enough taxpayer money ever. He also talked about the increase
in local spending to CMS two hundred million dollars over
two years three years now. I said this quote or
this stat rather to somebody. I don't remember if it
was on the air, if it was in private life
or whatever, but I mentioned it, and they were shocked
to learn when I said that CMS their enrollment is
basically flat. What No, that's not possible. So I went,
just out of curiosity, I went and I pulled the
ADM the average daily membership for CMS, and CMS has
this data available? You can find it for every single
school and the district itself. What do you think the
change in CMS student enrollment has been over the last
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asked the question, what do you think has been the
enrollment change in CMS over the last decade, because as
you just heard Arthur Griffin, former chairman longtime chairman of
the Charlotte Mecklenberg School Board point out that CMS has
gotten an additional two hundred million dollars over the last
two to three years net two hundred million. In fact,
Hang on second, I've got last year's budget announcement. So
this was for the twenty twenty five budget, they increased
spending one hundred and forty million dollars. That was a
five point nine per cent increase over the twenty twenty
four budget. Okay, and they fully funded cms's budget request
with an additional forty six and a half million Okay.
This year they fully fund cms's budget request of twenty
eight million dollars. That is a four point four percent
increase for total CMS operating funding of six hundred and
sixty six point one million dollars, and it says in
their press release that the increase will primarily supplement teacher salaries,
and then they give a bullet point breakdown of what
the funding goes to, and interestingly enough, it does not
actually primarily supplement teacher salaries, so that's a lie, okay.
Out of the press release, it says nine point nine
for salary increases for locally funded staff, eight point three
to address below market salaries and increase compensation relative to
years of service. CMS they give you more money the
longer you've been there, so people complaining about the state
not doing that, CMS does that with their supplements. So
that's nine point nine plus eight point three plus another
eight point one to increase local supplements, and you add
all of that together and you end up with twenty
six point three million dollars. But thirty three million is
for capital spending for repairs and maintenance of existing facilities.
So no, the increase is not primarily supplementing teacher salaries.
It's primarily going to fix and maintain the buildings that
you guys said we needed to build for all of
the students over the last fifty years, right, all the bonds.
You're coming at us with another bond, You're going to
be asking for more bond funding. Well, obviously we need
it for all of the influx of students. Now I'm
old enough to remember when CMS was the largest school
district in the state. We are no longer that WAKE
is now the largest. Right, So if you go back
and look at the average daily membership the EIGHTYM they
are required. CMS is required to report EIGHTM to the
state on a monthly basis. EIGHTM is an average of
membership across the reporting period and is the key metric
for state funding allocations. That's why they want more kids
in the schools so they get more money from the state.
So EIGHTYM ten years ago, in the twenty fifteen to
twenty sixteen school year was one hundred forty four thousand
and seven eighty three, so one hundred and forty five
thousand students. It went up the next year, it went
up the next year, It went up just a little
bit in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen. Then you start seeing
a decline after twenty nineteen twenty twenty. Hmmm, did something
happen in twenty twenty because it went from one hundred
and forty five almost one hundred and forty six thousand,
down to one hundred and thirty eight thousand, and then
it dropped again in twenty twenty one. It went back
up in twenty twenty two, twenty three, and then it
went back down last year, and now it went back
up by a little bit this year. And I say
a little bit, I'm talking one thousand less than a
thousand kids. So what I mean since covid CMS enrollment
has flatlined, now maybe it keeps going up and up
and up. That's possible. It could keep going up. I
don't know. But if ten years ago you had something
on the order of well not even ten years ago,
you had like seven thousand more students than you have now,
that indicate that you would require less money. See, this
is the problem. There's always an excuse to spend more.
You either have too many kids, so we have to
build more and pay more, or you have too few
kids and so now they have different needs, so we
have to build more, pay more. There's never a reason
to cut with these people. And by the way, the
last point here on the tax rate, Arthur Griffin made
this point, and I agree with him completely, and he
knows what he's talking about, and he knows these political arguments.
He used to make them as a member of the
school board. Now he's on the county Commission, demanding accountability,
and so he sees through this narrative about, well, we
have the lowest tax rate among our surrounding counties.
Speaker 5: As we talk about the tax rate less different than
the tax build as you get your property reevaluated, the
tax rate could be ten cents per one hundred. But
if your properly escalates over one thousand percent, and you
all know the decrescence being impacted by that uneven escalation,
I can't support this tax rate. Given those three principles
that I suggested to your original.
Speaker 1: Think right, the three principles were defined, defined smart goals.
Defined goals, align the money with the impact right, best
bang for the buck, and then be honest about what
is working and what is not working. And by the way,
in the press release from the county, the twenty six
budget works to achieve several broad goals. Number one, fund
programs and services that align with the board's priorities. They
admit in the first bullet point of their press release.
These are their priorities including environmental stewardship, health equity and wellness,
right reducing racial disp These are their goals. You don't
get to offload the blame for the property tax increase
to the state. All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening. I could not do
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