Why wasn't the special Preliminary Budget Meeting for Foster County noticed to the public in The Independent (the official newspaper of Foster County) the week before the meeting took place on Monday, September 29, 2014? If you watch this video clip taken from that meeting, you just might figure out why Chairman Straley and Auditor Risovi didn't want anyone to attend.
At the meeting, John Murphy, former Foster County, North Dakota, commissioner said that something is seriously wrong with the preliminary budget presented by Chairman Straley and Auditor Risovi for 2015. According to him, it just "doesn't make sense!" Something is drastically wrong with the way the preliminary budget is put together. Important details are missing, like for instance, the county evaluation that the mil levy is based on. How can anyone understand the budget and figure out how much the taxes are without that information?!
According to Murphy, the fact that it takes a million dollars more to run Foster County than either Eddy County or Griggs County is not right. Griggs County is actually larger with the same offices; yet it is being run on much less than Foster County. Murphy says that he tried his best to make some sense out of the budget figures, but there just aren't enough details to do so.
Watch the video to see other problems with the preliminary budget for Foster County. At the end of the video, Doug Zink agrees with John Murphy and adds the fact that even though the State helped out the county and townships last year with a large amount of money, "Foster County was the only county in North Dakota that did not pass that tax relief on to the taxpayers."
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