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Now comes the hard part

Posted on July 23, 2009 by Staff

Too often in the news business, we’re on to the next thing before the ink is dry. In the spirit of our friends in the land-and-table community who are adherents of Slow Food, this paper tries to practice its journalistic cousin, Slow News. To us, that means lots of local ingredients and fighting the urge to rush something into print for the sake of, well, rushing something into print. It also means taking a little more time to reflect on what was so-called yesterday’s new.

Just last month, the big story was how the recession is affecting the budgets of our local governments. Unless you’re a numbers freak, these are never sexy stories, but they are important to a wide spectrum. This year’s budget meme was cutting costs without cutting services — a near impossible feat to accomplish, let alone define. Some of those cuts are already having a visible impact. Just ask anyone who uses the Bradshaw Quarry Solid Waste Convenience Center, which Orange County will close in September.

Perhaps a little less visible is the impact of savings in human resources. Most of the cost of operating any local government goes to pay and benefits for employees. This year, public employees took it on the chin. Most won’t see much if any of an increase in pay.
That’s to be expected in almost any tight year. Add to that additional measures like the suspension of contributions to retirement plans, higher co-pays or deductibles in insurance and a myriad of other cuts that may not seem like a big deal on the surface, but end up meaning a heck of a lot to individual families trying to make ends meet.

And public employees and the rest of us will experience the consequences of long-term hiring freezes and hiring slowdowns. That’s where the fine line between cutting funds and cutting services becomes a tightrope. We won’t know right away if the cuts will result in longer lines at town and county offices, extended turnaround times for inspections and permits or sparser enforcement, but we do know that the cuts that were yesterday’s news are being felt today.

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