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How bad is it? The City Budget - Personal Commentary In this personal commentary: the writer says the police slice of the budget pie has swelled from one-quarter of the city budget to one-half of the total city budgert at the present time. He says that, in additional to salaries, the police department building has helped sink the budget. And he lists the most dangerous jobs in America. By Ralph Roy Waggener, As Always Out of Order Personal commentary by the editor/publisher of "It's Just for a Smile News When Edwin Taylor was the chief of police for Columbia his budget was about $550,000 per year and about 25% of the city's total budget; last year the budget was one million and 25 thousand and represented almost 50% of the city budget. Go do the math yourself. The city started it's down slide of it 2 million plus rainy day fund under former Mayor Pat Bell. Pat, being a friend of mine, told me that he thought he should build the extension to the City Jall because it was grant money and I believed him. I did not know until recently that he had used $530,000 dollars out of the rainy day fund to build the new police department on to the City Hall. Not only did he use the $530,000 but spent grant money on this monstrosity totaling over one million and one hundred thousand dollars. County Judge Ann Melton offered to sell the city the old Hutchison Hdw. garage building that faces the City Hall parking lot for $160,000 for a police station a sum even I thought was too high, but could have been used for a police station and provided more parking as well. With $150 or no more than $200 thousand dollars we could have had a huge savings and had a better location. One better, if the two had worked together it could have been shared with the Sheriff's office to save money for both Adair Co. and Columbia. I had believed that the addition was all grant money and still would not have wasted the money on such a project as a million + dollar police station! The City of Columbia has run it budget in the red for the past 6 or 7 years, keeping quiet about what it was doing. The police department was where the most cost increase has occurred and that is why it has been my main objective in getting the city to balance its budget. South Central Printing, Inc has been going through the same problems since 2009 so I know a little about short fall budgets because of shorter revenues; you just have to rein in spending if you are to survive. The 10 most dangerous jobs in the US are 1. Commercial fishing, 2. Logging, 3. Aircraft pilots, 4. garbage tippers followed by 5. Roofers 6. Structural iron workers 7. Construction job helpers. 8. Farm/ranch workers 9. Truck drivers and #10 nature reserve officers. Number 18 is fire fighters. I found one survey that had police officers as a number 4 and that most injuries were from car accidents of police officers. You can Goggle this by asking for "Most dangerous jobs" and there are several different results with similar results it's worth your time to look see. I have a high regard for police officers as a whole and I mean to take nothing from the risk they take but I was surprised as to who ranks higher like a garbage tipper! We don't give this thankless job much respect, and to think our Adair County/Columbia Fire Departments work with no retirement or benefits at all. They get a fee when they go on a run as they come about, but not very much. In the 50's and 60's most of our police force was made up of older men and a few younger officers who seemed to always be getting into trouble. The Chief of Police was Murray Knifley who was Donald's father who is Chris's dad, policing runs in the family. - Ralph Waggener This story was posted on 2013-12-16 10:37:50
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