By now, most of us have paid our city and county property taxes and are sitting down, trying to figure out our budgets for next year. Increasing expenses like taxes on businesses means that as a business owner, your choices change; either you raise your prices and hope that your income goes up enough to cover the new taxes, or you don’t offer your employees raises and you quit hiring, just hoping to keep the staff on that you have. Sometimes you wind up with both outcomes because higher prices make sales go down so that you don’t have the income for raises or additional employees. Either way, the working class is the hardest hit – prices go up, wages don’t.
So now that we’ve done our part and paid our taxes, it’s time to ask the city and county if they are doing their part. We need performance reviews on all departments in the city and the county. The only way to control taxes and help make Moab more affordable for our working families and single folks is to make sure the city and the county are efficient and not wasting our tax dollars. If you own a business in Moab or are part of the working class, ask the city and the county to do performance reviews on all departments and make the results public. We have the right to see how our tax dollars are being spent and there should be the opportunity to offer suggestions on how to control spending. That’s how government in a small town like ours should work. The new year is a great time to start fresh. Ask your County Commissioners and City Council members to do their part in helping our community be a place where EVERYONE can live and be successful. We all have hopes of doing more than just surviving.
Thank you
Susie Johnston
