LMT, Help Us Out- Pie Chart the City Budget

Chart the Budget

Laredo Morning Times, how about a little help for the people who pay for the city to operate, the taxpayers.

Show us a pie chart of the proposed city budget similar to the one I have put up to the left.  Show us what percentage of the city budget goes to which departments, so we can see where our money is going.

Note:  my chart to the left has each department allocated equal portions of the budget, which I know are not true, nor are they realistic expectations.  What will be interesting is just how much goes to police and fire (when all costs including retirement/insurance) are added in.  We, the taxpayers, need to know just how, to borrow a phrase from my environmental friends, "sustainable" our city budget is.

In fact, if the LMT really wants to show "sustainability", they would chart the last 10 years of city budgets and show just where the money is going.

However, my bets are on receiving a newspaper article reporting only what the city says and presents on its own, which will be of little value to the taxpayers.