By Roderick McClain
10-13-10 – In this year's general election, there are four candidates and two open seats for New Hanover County Commissioner. One of those candidates, Republican Rick Catlin, says retooling the budget, not raising taxes, is what the county needs.
In the county budget there's a $13.2-million gap between expenditures and revenue, and that's after county administrators tightened the belt on departmental funding requests.
Wilmington environmental engineer Rick Catlin says starting a new budget from zero is more work, but he thinks the time is right.
"Our problem is that we do incremental budgeting. The money that was spent last year is automatically approved and we only argue about what the changes are. That's an easier way to budget, but after three or four decades you end up with some legacy costs and some spiderwebs in there."
Catlin also says that restructuring the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority would be one of the first items on his agenda.