|
With tough times looming for many folks—especially in our real estate-dependent market of greater Placer County—many families here are girding themselves for a recession that the national media has convinced us is coming. For even the most optimistic among us, however, with the cold reality of rampant home foreclosures coupled with shrinking incomes and staggering fuel costs, it’s clearly time to hunker down financially.
Already we’re seeing consumer discretionary spending on many levels dramatically curtailed. The past Christmas season was a disappointment for many local retailers, and sales in January were generally very soft. Ask any restaurant owner in Auburn, and just about everyone will tell you that business is off—in some cases way off—especially during weekdays.
While it’s far too early to panic, many small business owners in
this town are worried, especially when it comes time to cough up sales
taxes, payroll liabilities and to open utility bills. With current
prospects disheartening, it seems a long way off until “Black Friday,”
the magical day after Thanksgiving when balance sheets finally turn
positive. Raising prices to help sustain profitability is not an option
because it would simply drive more people down the hill to the box
stores and discounters.
Rich, middle class, poor ... right now
we’re all in the same position: we have to make tough decisions that
likely translate to settling for less now as a simple means of
self-preservation. Working harder and smarter will simply keep most of
us running in place—if we’re lucky.
Actually, not everyone is in
this same leaky boat. Our Placer County government, though staggered by
a $23 million shortfall in revenue sharing from the State of
California, still has its spending pedal pressed hard to the metal. At
its February 5 meeting, the Board of Supervisors discussed purchasing a
new, more powerful helicopter and approved both a costly addition to
the County Jail and a new bio-mass program.
So why do the Supes
continue on their merry way? Easy. . .they have the power to make up a
sizeable portion of the shortfall by simply raising fees the County
charges to businesses—a hidden “tax” that shifts the revenue burden to
the shoulders of an essentially disenfranchised constituency.
On
February 5, the back rows of the board room were filled with unhappy
restaurateurs—mostly from Auburn—who planned to protest a giant
increase in fees levied by the Placer County Health Department to
conduct facility inspections (and a variety of other fees for well
drillers, pool inspections and hazardous material handling). Total
revenue to be generated is $2.3 million.
As a restaurant owner
myself, I am accustomed to being pummeled with fees from both the City
of Auburn and the County. What is particularly irritating about this
proposed shafting, however, is it amounts to precisely 10% of the
County’s revenue shortfall and has little or nothing to do with actual
costs of inspections.
I can only imagine what happened behind
closed doors, with the Supes, Sheriff, department heads and a legion of
administrators huddled together, coming up with a plan to erase the
deficit:
“Okay, people,” said a generic Supe, “we don’t care
how you do it—cut costs, roll heads or raise fees—just so long as it
adds up to $2.3 million.”
For Dr. Richard J. Burton, director and
health officer for the Department of Health and Human Services,
Environment Health Division (now there’s a handsome title), it was a
simple assignment: have an assistant to the director fire up a
spreadsheet with all of the fee categories, run it against the roll of
qualified taxpayers and then reverse-engineer the numbers. Bodabing. .
.you’ve got your $2.3 mil. . .and nobody even broke a sweat.
A
big chunk of that revenue would come directly from restaurants in the
form of health inspection fees. The cut for my business, Carpe Vino in
Old Town, would be $744 (50 seats or less), more than triple what I
paid when I opened the joint in 2002. For Ty Rowe’s 100+ seat
Bootleggers, his new nut is $1,071, representing a nearly 100% increase.
Dr.
Burton’s goal is to have the fees recover the full cost of the
inspection services, though the fees are standardized and inspection
requirements vary widely from business to business. He also argues that
over the past 15 years fee increases have been tied to the CPI with no
general cost increase. My retort is what have you people been doing for
the last 15 years; why are you jacking up fees so unmercifully at the
worst possible moment?
Five “workshops” have been held to discuss
the changes and two postcards have been sent out by the County to
affected businesses, but I heard about the BOS meeting from a colleague
in Old Town. Though the Supes voted to continue this agenda item until
February 26, they allowed public comment and there was plenty of it.
The Supes listened politely, and while I suspect the fees will be
modulated a bit, we’ll still be forced to choke up plenty in the end.
In
a more perfect world, County administrators would act like
businesspeople and make the hard decisions necessary during tough times
... not just belly up to the trough again. The County needs to get this
message clearly: The Party is Over ... Stone Cold Over.
There’s
another proposed increase on the table: bumping the annual salary of a
County Supervisor—there are five—from $30,000 to $90,000. Personally, I
feel the current compensation is woefully insufficient, but at the same
time, I can’t imagine where we’re going to get another $300k.
Perhaps the Supervisors should just ask Dr. Burton to figure it out.
Gary Moffat is a journalist and he owns Carpe Vino in Old Town Auburn. He can be reached at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed