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Help Alcona County help you

We don’t envy the position in which Alcona County commissioners find themselves.

They’ve cut costs. They’ve raised fees. They’ve instituted a hiring freeze, as reporter Crystal Nelson told us in a story in Saturday’s edition. As Nelson told us on today’s front page, county officials also are working to boost economic development to grow the tax base.

Still, after voters not once but twice in 2018 rejected property tax proposals, the county has been forced to repeatedly dip into cash savings to cover its annual expenses.

That savings account is now half what it was in 2013.

And, while the county has enough in the bank to cover a still-healthy 19% of its annual expenses, too many years of continuing withdrawals will spell trouble.

The county board is considering going to voters again, this time thinking of a tax proposal for a specific program, instead of the general operating tax voters nixed in 2018.

We’re in no position to tell the county what to do.

But you are.

We encourage Alcona County residents to reach out to their commissioners, to attend county board meetings, to tell board members specifically what they want, what they’re willing to support. Tell them what’s important and what’s not.

We encourage the county commissioners to listen.

Those are public coffers, and the public needs to be intimately involved in deciding how those coffers are invested.

(THE ALPENA NEWS)

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