My local town is run incredibly well. Our school taxes are high but that is because folks are rich where I live (among other reasons). What is most impressive is how well the towns themselves are run, the level of amenities they provide and the quality of the services they provide, based on the tax revenues they collect. The same is not true of our county.
In a future post I’ll show some data on local versus country tax collections and spending, but here is a policy I would support at the county level. I’d support taking 50% of current county expenditures, eliminate a slew of county programs, and instead use it all, annually, to advertise our area to people from outside the community. This advertising would not be to promote vacations here, but to promote relocations here. Even if every one of those dollars were wasted getting 1 family per year to relocate here, I argue this would be a better use of funds than we currently see. But I suspect the gains would be better.
But it’s the weekend, and we keep our thoughts short on weekends, so we’ll end there for now.
But wouldn’t you say the best way to attract relocation, is to attract business? I would have loved to stay in the Rochester area, but that wasn’t really an option.