Never fear!!!! Paul Jones will be out of the big house in just over a month. He will come back and balance the budget!!

To bad his shill in the service department doesn't know how to balance budget... Paul taught him well

Dose of Reality - well put!

Now, if we could just get the county officials to stop spending for outrageous projects. 4.5 million on a new prosecutor's office and now they want to build a new courthouse in Kent! When is it all going to end? Yesterday's RC showed a picture of two new sheriff's cruisers. They didn't show you a picture of the USED cruisers their considering buying from Geauga County because they don't have enough money to buy an entire fleet of cruisers!
No wonder, it's all tied up in the prosecutor's palace.

Let's first start by stop passing "emergency ordinances" like paying for someone disc jockey services for summer day camp? buying t-shirts for RAC personnel? back-up cleaning services for the Annex building - for the purchase of trees for Chestnut Hills park - increase the pay for the Law Director's part-time secretary........................ on an on

This is just another case of poor planning. They go ahead with all of the dam services which only serve a few citizens without caring about the cost. They figured the taxpayers will keep on paying. Look at how many administrative people they have and look at the salary they make. Look at the money they spend to send them to their respective Association meetings. Look at how many good old boys they keep on the payroll as a voting machine to keep them is office.

I believe we, the taxpayer should say, "No way, we ain't going to pay!"

PUBLIC EMPLOYEES & OFFICIALS SHOULD FIRST SET THE EXAMPLE WHILE CUTTING OFF THE FAT WITHIN.

Folks, this is just the beginning. The Politians and City Officials (local, county, county & federal) are not speaking the truth about the financial deficit over the next few years.

What you will hear is how they have to support services, services and more services.

While employed, I enjoyed job security coming from personal commitment, maintaining a professional attitude along with dedicated responsibility to my (private) employer. My job benefits included partial employer health care (employer contributed 40% of monthly policy), two weeks vacation (without any roll-over or accumulation), basis holiday pay with conditions such as working the day before and the day after the holiday if they fell within Monday thru Friday. A 401K Plan with no employer contribution but at least we had some type of retirement plan. No pension like almost every non-government employee.

This private employer made some hard decisions a few years ago which included lay-offs and yes, I was one of the unfortunate n the block. In all the company is surviving the times and many others have kept their jobs in the process while remaining competive in there market.

Government on the other hand has not prepared for the times while over the past four years the economy has tanked our government has maintained spending and taxing. Now their awake!

In my opinion, every government employee should make concessions and appreciate the positions and job opportunity first.

Taxpayers can not continue to allow government to pay for all or the majority of employee healthcare, retirement plans/pensions, dollar for dollar or percentage of matching 401 contribution plans, extreme vacation benefits exceeding three weeks, 14 paid holidays over and above vacation days, continued annual increases based on inflation or cost of living, etc

This is not an attack on Teachers but just an easy target and I am sure others can add to this list. Look at education field. The majority of the employees work 180 day per year. Yes, half of the year while receiving (paid) days off during Christmas & Easter and all the other Mondays & Fridays while still receiving vacation. Some or the majority of government workers can roll-over unused vacation days and accumulate them for years and years. This allows the government worker to have a lump vacation payment at retirement which I believe increases their final year's wages and pension benefits. Firefighters & Police receive overtime pay to attend funerals. The sad thing about that is I always thought they were attending the funerals exclusively out of respect for their fellow employee. Firefighters work 2 or three consecutive days with 3 or four days off. Their off days are conveniently scheduled to work for another city and double the time and/or pension benefits. Police have similar employment schemes. City, County, State and Federal Administrators have countless assistants. Try to remember the last time you were in a public building while thinking these guys really work their a_ _es off. I could go on and on while I hope you get the picture.


There are many, many more situations going on and we must stop the molestation of public dollars and demand cut backs without eliminating public services first.

Start Now before there's no turning back