Chris Graham: A little here, a little there, and it starts to add up

  
Column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net

It’s a cold, hard reality. Waynesboro, like most other communities in the Commonwealth and across the country, is facing pretty severe budget shortfalls, both in the near term and into next year.

Policy moves at the local and state level aren’t making things any easier.

We’ll start in City Hall, which is looking at a $183,000 shortfall in the current fiscal-year budget and a $2.6 million funding gap in the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. With the U.S. economy beginning to heat up, posting 6 percent growth in gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2009, the glaring hole in the City Hall employee flow chart in the economic-development director position that has been open since August 2008 won’t get the city in a position to take advantage of growth opportunities that are already in the offing. Continue reading “Chris Graham: A little here, a little there, and it starts to add up” »