The Waistline
While deciding where to trim the family budget in these tough times, take a moment to see how the City of Lakewood uses our tax money for dining and yummy treats. The following figures are from searches at nataliementen.com and cover City Hall’s treats from Jan. 2007- Aug. 2008*:
- “Lunch”: $64,753
- “Breakfast”: $12,403.55
- “Dinner”: $27,991.78
- “Food”: $41,850.99
- “Snacks”: $6,064.39
- “Coffee: $8,710.80
- “Ice cream”: $3,348.57
- “Donuts”: $491.62
- “Drinks”: $1,741.08
- “Candy”: $1.931.04
The total: just less than $169,000**.
*Search terms in quotation marks
**No overlapping charges
Let me understand your reasoning Max,….our Lakewood Leaders can purchase lunches, or whatever they wish, as long as they only spend up to 0.066% of the total budget? How many Estes Park retreats could Rocky and the Council squeeze in for $169k? How many bogus mileage reimbursements could Murph submit before he reaches $169k? How bout we just give the $169k as a bonus to whoever found the so-called savings?
Do you see how short sighted your defense is Max? Where does that excuse end Max? How many 0.066% expenditures do you allow in one year Max? I love ya Max, but you’re not thinking this one through both economies (yours and mine). If you continue to hand over that $169k in taxes for FOOD, you continue to remove $169k from other industries in my economy……get it?
In other words, you’re allowing Rocky to spend $169k on food, when he should be spending it on our road maintenance or our safety – That’s government’s role!! Their role is not to keep local restaurants in business! That’s our role as citizens! If they tax us $169k less, we can spend it at the restaurants at our leisure! It’s not their role Max!
Or maybe I’ve misunderstood your argument…..maybe you meant that as long as the bureaucrats save $1.8 million, they’re entitled to spend $169k on food? If that’s your defense, then Council should be willing to pay you and I another $169k to find $1.8 million “savings” in the next 18 months! – I guarantee, you and I could identify at least twice the “savings” Lakewood employees found! – you and I would make a great team Max!
C’mon Max, get real brother!…….It’s OUR money, not theirs! If they truly are saving $1.8 million (belly laugh here), they should be able to reduce next year’s Mill Levy to reflect that “savings” – right? Wanna bet that won’t happen?
Hey Max,…..I’ll bet you lunch….c’mon.…you can even invite a Lakewood bureaucrat.
How many hard-working city employees lost jobs or had their hours cut back in the cuts over those 20 months?
How many services to our lower-income or disabled citizens were cut back or eliminated?
Oh, well, at least you got a box meal and a soda for doing your civic duty.
What ever happened to the idea that civic involvement springs from a sense of duty, not for the treats and free meals.
$169,000 is trivial? I doubt many single moms or older folks on fixed incomes in this city would agree with that. Send them the free meals and take a brown bag lunch to your next civic event!
Wonder if the savings were because employees knew people were buying city spending records to make public on a website.
$169,000!?!? Wow, that’s a lot of money. Let’s see, the city budget during that 20 months was about $255,000,000 so that would be 0.0006627
of the budget. At the same time Lakewood managers trimmed, as in saved, did not spend, $1,800,000 from the budget they were allowed in 2008. They did a lot better than penny-pinching lunch money. Perhaps a number of department heads went off site to 240 Union (a locally owned restaurant) and spent $1,000 for dinner, and came up with $100,000 of cost savings as a result of their meeting. Well worth it I’d say.
Oh, yes. I am personally responsible for a bunch of those coffee and dinner charges because along with over 30 other Lakewood residents I went to the Lakewood Planning Academy for 7 four hour nights of learning about the really dry subject of planning. So for my time dedicated to learning how to be a better citizen I got a box dinner and coffee and soda.
$169,000? Trivial. Find ten more of those chunks to save as much as Lakewood employees saved in the 2008 budget alone.