GOP candidates unveil county finance plan
The message from MontCo Republicans: The county's finances are broken, and we know how to fix them.
GOP Commissioner Candidates Bruce L. Castor Jr. and Jenny Brown laid out a five-point finance management reform platform at a media conference Tuesday.
"The county's finances are in a critical condition," said Brown, a Lower Merion supervisor with a reputation for being a hawk on budget issues. "Bruce and I have looked at some of these problems and come up with some policies to address them."
Their proposals include:
Establishing a county debt limit pegged to a ratio of cash reserves to the annual debt service to prevent excessive borrowing in the future.
Adopting strict measures on how much fund balance the county should keep in reserves to avoid overtaxing residents in good times and undertaking them during bad.
Placing the county's check register online
Requiring five-year financial forecasts be undertaken during each annual round of budget planning
Appointing a team of government, business and financial advisors to identify inefficiencies in county government
"This is to take this away from the impression that we're making politically motivated doomsday prediction and put this into the realm of scientific measureable terms that we either meet or we don't," said Castor.
Their statements came a week after Castor issued a scathing report on county spending and borrowing during the last four years. As of Dec. 31, 2007, the county had cash reserves of $95.5 million and a debt service of $27.5 million. He predicted the county's reserves will have dwindled to $23.5 million with an increase in debt service to $35.1 million.
Castor, the only incumbent in the race, has made much of the fact that Republican county Treasurer Tom Ellis has endorsed his findings but said little about the other fact that Ellis is his campaign's finance chairman.
(Commissioner Joseph M. Hoeffel III – who has led county government during the last four years in a bipartisan coalition with commissioners' Chairman James R. Matthews -- has taken issue with Castor's conclusions in a response you can read below, along with Castor's original report.)
Both Brown and Castor refused Tuesday to take a firm stance on whether they would maintain the county's current property tax levels.
"We are loath to raise taxes," Castor said. "We can't say we aren't going to raise them because we don't know how bad it is or how bad it's going to get."
Their Democratic opponents – State Rep. Josh Shapiro and Whitemarsh Commissioner Leslie Richards – have vowed they will not raise taxes if elected. They've planned their own financial platform media conference for Wednesday.