http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-790615.mp3
Kansas City, Mo. – Without mention of job cuts, without a word of reduced services, the Jackson County Missouri Executive has presented his spending plan for 2009.
With index tabs, it is an inch thick document covering every county function, from judicial to medical examiner. Executive Mike Sanders says the county condition is sound, without a raise in taxes. And revenues have been declining over three years. His proposed budget is balanced. In Sanders' words,it is "a budget balanced by sound policies, tough choices and fiscal integrity, not by accounting slight of hand".
Sanders says staff have reduced county expenditures by some $12 million in slightly less than two years, which is fourteen and a half percent of annual revenues. In Sanders estimation, Jackson county will move into 2009 with expenditures in line with it's revenues.