Experts agree: the effect of the current recession on County revenues will not be temporary. We need to plan for the long term. We cannot afford to pay for our government as it is currently structured. That's what people mean when they discuss our "structural deficit." After four years of recession, Mr. Leggett's government looks exactly the same as it did in year one. That's not progress.
Mr. Leggett now needs to cut a government that he has spent 20 years growing as an elected official in Montgomery County. His unwillingness to make those hard choices is understandable. But it is not acceptable. We need to restructure County government now. We must act decisively. There can be no sacred cows. We need to focus on delivering core services with fewer employees. And when cutting employees we need to ensure that we don't unfairly favor preserving management jobs at the expense of front-line service providers.
As a gesture that he is willing to share the pain felt by other County workers, Mr. Leggett has pledged to forego his annual pay raise. We don't need gestures. We need to reexamine the services we deliver, how we deliver them, and how we can do so more cost effectively. But foregoing raises is not the type of structural change that we need to make. Mr. Leggett has failed to put forth any comprehensive plan for controlling the cost of government. As Democratic Councilmember Marc Elrich says: "The problem is, there hasn't been any systematic plan to shrink the government."
To the contrary, even as he drove the County to a $1 billion deficit, Mr. Leggett went on a $500 million spending spree which he calls his "Smart Growth Initiative." That program is designed to perpetuate existing government programs in expensive new facilities at enormous cost to County taxpayers. It is in mid-stream, and will require the expenditure of hundreds of millions of County dollars in the next several years. Mr. Leggett's pursuit of the "Smart Growth Initiative" belies any claim that he will act in a fiscally responsible way if he is reelected.
