Jimbo, Huffin-Stuff Won't "Budge" on Budget...

The two Montgomery County Commissioners introduced a budget for 2010 that will leave us with an $11 million shortfall. They are placing the burden of closing that gap firmly on the backs of the row officers and department heads, telling them to cut spending by at least 5 %.

They are also re-paying the county employees, who keep this squeaky wheel greased, by freezing their wages and making them pay what amounts to "dues" to work for the county now, in the form of payroll contributions toward their health care.

Some people may say "it's about time that county workers had to shoulder the burden"...but did you know that Montgomery County employees are paid considerably less than their counterparts in Philly and the surrounding counties, that the benefits package was incentive enough to take a low paying job in order to provide health care, without cost, to their families?

Looks like Matthews and Hoeffel are, in fact "Huffin-Stuff".

Every employer who is worth their salt looks for other ways to cut a budget before taking it to their employees to shoulder the burden. This county was operating with a surplus when Jimbo and Jo-Jo formed their unholy alliance, and have run that well dry in the less than two years they have been working together to effectively ruin Montgomery County. Shades of 1991, here we go again!

Jo-Jo- and JimTurd are also proposing that the county self-insure, stating that Blue Cross refuses to underwrite the county employees because of a $6 million loss last year...$6 million in one year? That's the risk insurance companies take.

The lone dissenter, Republican Commissioner Bruce L. Castor, Jr., proposed that the county "exhaust other options before taking it to the employees", according to the Times Herald:

Also, he suggested changing the resolution’s language dealing with proposed benefits from “Whereas, this self insurance plan will include a modest and appropriate employee contribution for health care costs” to “may include” a worker contribution.

But citing a Jan. 1 deadline for workers to consider the Keystone HMO/Flex plan before enrolling, Matthews resisted putting off the vote.

“It seems to me you’re short-circuiting the process by not hearing the options,” Castor said.

Human Resources director Eleanor Schneider (who until this year was JimTurds secretary...no patronage here, huh?) told the commissioners employees will need December to consider the benefits plan before the end of the year.

“If we don’t have hard figures, then we can’t have open enrollment meetings,” she said.

No hard figures, but the employees have to shoulder the burden? Sounds a little short-sighted for Jimbo and Huffin-Stuff to be making the egregious suggestions without the "hard figures" in front of them, doesn't it?

Once again, it's bad governance, brought to you by a tax and spend democrat and a traitor...1991 all over again!

Read the entire Times Herald article here.


And here is the rest of it.