With money rolling in, would be a good time to save
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Last week, the Page City Council agreed to move forward with the 2017-18 budget without making many changes, but while discussing the budget they did get into an important discussion on spending levels in the future.
I didn’t attend the meeting, so most of what I know right now is from hearing other people talking about it. But to my understanding, several members of the council raised concerns about spending too much money, something easy to do when times are good.
Thanks largely to continued increases in tourism, the city of Page is collecting increasing amounts of revenue year after year.
As a result, the city has been steadily increasing spending. There’s no doubt most of the spending is wanted by local residents and needed in the community.
Road repairs are badly needed in some parts of town. Upgrades to the city’s water and sewer system are desperately needed. The hiring of more police and giving the officers adequate equipment is necessary.
But there is a danger when government spending levels increase during good times. I’ve seen it way too many times. When revenue increases, spending jumps quickly. When revenue decreases, it becomes difficult if not impossible to make the same spending cuts. The biggest problems happen when the spending increases are used for new employees. When the revenue slows down, it is hard to cut back staffing.