IF WE ARE GOING TO CUT TAXES, WE WILL HAVE TO CUT SPENDING.

If we are going to cut our taxes, we have to cut our budget. If we are going to increase funding for the police, we have to take it from somewhere else. The new council takes office on June 14. The new budget is approved in September. I will use that time to review the budget, ask hard questions and recommend items to cut. Government bureaucracies do not cut their budgets unless someone applies pressure. I am willing to apply the pressure. It will not be a quick fix. But, I believe that we can freeze spending and any required reductions in staff can be taken care of by attrition without undue hardship to city personnel. If we freeze spending, increases in property valuations will eventually bring us into line with the tax rate of other major Texas cities. We do not have to cut basic services to freeze spending. Other cities provide basic services with much lower tax rates. So can we.

We will have to re-align spending to find more money for the police. If elected, I will compare the 2015 budget when we had 3500 police officers with the current budget where we have 3000 to find what has been added to spend the money we saved on the 500 officers we cut. That will be ther first place to look for savings; but, every item will be under scruitny.