Mayor Pothole's Disastrous Budgeting

Mayor Pothole and City Council have raided a surplus in the water and sewer fund in order to make up shortfalls in other areas of the city budget, rather than making cuts and spending water and sewer money on *gasp* water and sewer. Now, Mayor Pothole has commissioned a $170,000 (no sense of irony there!) study to determine if water and sewer rates will need to be increased. Rather than raising questions about the need for a rate increase when there is surplus money in the fund to be reallocated for other purposes, the Chron instead has this bit of usual brilliance:

The city has been staving off a water and sewer rate increase for months, but may need to approve one this year.

Wouldn't it be nice, just once if Houston's (mis)Leading Information Source (tm) could bring itself to ask the obvious question: if the fund is in surplus, why is a rate increase necessary?

That's just too much to expect from the Chron, of course.

[Posted at 21:52 CST on 02/21/02] [Link]