The Washington Post reports that Prince William County may tap into it’s reserve fund to finance enforcement of last year’s anti-illegal immigration ordinance:
Cash-strapped Prince William County will look to its contingency reserve fund to pay for its crackdown on illegal immigrants.
On Tuesday, the Board of County Supervisors will consider transferring nearly $800,000 from its reserves to the Prince William Police Department to enforce its anti-illegal immigrant resolution enacted last year. That will nearly wipe out the county’s reserves this fiscal year, which ends in June.
When county officials set aside a $900,000 surplus last year, they knew it would not cover the cost of enforcing the plan. Prince William was further hampered when Virginia cut $575,000 from county police services, leaving the reserves the only option to pay for the unbudgeted initiative. Supervisors are anticipating a $51 million budget shortfall this year and are likely to raise taxes.
Dare I say that fiscal prudence is giving way to anti-immigration hysteria ?
And, next year, when our tax bill start going up, I’ve got to wonder if the residents of Prince William County will really appreciate the crusade that Corey Stewart and John Stirrup have committed us to.
February 2nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Prudence? PRUDENCE!?!?!?
Since when?
If fiscal prudence EVER guided this Board, my taxes wouldn’t have increased 70% during Chairman Sean’s terms. If fiscal prudence guided this Board, it wouldn’t give Supervisors discretionary funds with which to buy votes. If fiscal prudence guided this Board, it wouldn’t be handing out taxpayer funds to charities. If fiscal prudence guided this Board, it wouldn’t spend every year’s surplus in mid-fiscal-year spending sprees.
Using “contingency reserve funds” to fund a measure which, by some measures, already has had the positive effect of encouraging illegal immigrants to leave the County would be money well spent.
Certainly better spent than many things funded by our tax dollars.
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:25 am
The majority of the revenue for the County comes from real estate & personal property taxes. So, now, by having people both legal & illegal leave the county these 2 areas will generate less revenue. Then the majority of the expenditures goes to the county schools. Having said I’ve heard the states give the county money for ESL students that exceeds the costs of actually instructing the students. Will someone tell me where they expect to see the savings? It surely can’t be from the 6 services that the county is denying. How stupid especially considering that these ‘illegals’ might very well become legal with the election of the next President. Rescind the Resolution.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I feel sorry for the people that live there. This is needlessly spiking taxes and sinking the board into more and more problems.
March 1st, 2008 at 1:36 pm
This is a bunch of non-sense. I completely agree with Al Harkins. Instead of kicking them out, they should be trying to help them become legal so the countys overall income will increase, and not come to a stop like it is already doing. This is not a clean attempt to better our county, but simply a racist act. All in all, they can go ahead and enforce the law for a short period of time, but the county will end up losing with numerous racial profiling charges, dead income, no workforce, low real estate, along with everything else. Rescind the Resolution.