Editor, The Smithfield Times:

I agree with The Smithfield Times’ Our Forum of Sept. 4 (“Bad choice for audit committee”). As constituted, it is, in my opinion, an example of the fox watching the hen house.

Such an audit group, for credibility, should be composed of citizens independent of the county government and free to access all their financial transactions; after all, it is the taxpayers’ money. The current county budget is 395 pages, in which related expenses are dispersed in different pages, making it difficult to assess real line-item costs. 

Can the supervisors state that they have gone through it line by line and honestly understood it, or just relied on the staff recommendations? For example, the county’s Water and Stormwater Enterprise Funds are included in the budget. An Enterprise Fund label establishes that total direct and indirect costs to provide a service, and the sources and amounts of revenues that support the service for which a fee is charged in exchange for a service, must be segregated from all other county’s financial activities. Instead, these enterprise expenses are embedded into the county’s budget, not always segregated and apparently with profit monies regularly transferred to the General Fund. 

The Stormwater Enterprise Fund became a cash cow of revenue for the county; it assesses 45 different storm fees as listed in the budget. The Smithfield Times issue of Aug. 14 stated that the county is proposing to repeal the ordinance but keep the associated fees (it follows their ethics of “we do it because we can”). Stormwater programs originated to ameliorate floods caused by rainstorms, which in this county are not a major threat, and to protect the health of the Chesapeake Bay. 

There is no scientific-based evidence on biological monitoring of the stormwater program or cost-benefit assessments that it has significantly improved the health of the Bay. We live in Tidewater, whose name implies that tidal surges and rising seawater levels are the real flood threat, for which the Stormwater Program offers no protection.

 

Jose Hernandez

Carrollton