Chron endorses Parker’s “austerity budget”

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Austerity budget: Parker's spending plan goes a long way toward minimizing and spreading the pain – Houston Chronicle

Mayor Parker noted that even though library hours are being cut, care has been taken to make sure they remain safe harbors for children. “One of the important things for us is to make sure that our libraries are open until parents get off work,” said the mayor. “We are the day care of choice for a huge number of Houstonians.”

Does this strike anyone else as a curious thing to say? Or as a curious state of affairs, even?

This budget will also forgo borrowing tens of millions of dollars to pay for employee pension obligations, a fiscal device used by Parker’s predecessor, Bill White. The administration was able to save $24 million by delaying payouts for firefighter accrued time off and police pension fund payments.

The pension-fund deferrals are not an altogether different gimmick.

Gotta love the establishment newspaper getting behind the current establishment, though. It was hard to see that one coming! 😉 At least the mayor is not proposing a property tax increase to go with her massive water-rate and various fee increases, not to mention the rain tax enacted in her first term.

JJ_Monkey’s comment on chron.com was interesting. We’d also be curious how much more this mayor’s security detail is costing.


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