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Ragsdale budget might work great in la-la land
Larry Van Guilder says Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale’s new budget has no basis in reality; the numbers just don’t add up:
Unless Mayor Mike Ragsdale’s optimistic revenue projections are met, a lot of time and energy will have been devoted to devising and printing budgets that will be worth little more than bonfire material by fall.
The proposed FY 2009 budget is a study in contrasts, cautious with expenses yet optimistic in revenue projections. The $641 million budget assumes a combined 3.3 percent increase in property taxes, local option sales taxes and the wheel tax, about $13 million more than last year’s budget. By comparison, the city of Knoxville’s budget projects a modest 1.5 percent rise in sales tax collections and an increase in assessed property values of only 1.21 percent.

