Homeowners in Live Oak Preserve will have some extra change in their pockets next year. Their community development district fees likely will go down for the second year in a row. ...more

May 17, 2008

The city's department heads will spend the next three weeks preparing their budgets for next year with an eye toward making cuts. ...more

May 6, 2008

Now that the state's universities have decided to cut enrollment to offset a whopping budget shortfall, community colleges will have to figure out how to absorb even more students while cutting millions of dollars. ...more

February 26, 2008

Has anyone noticed how the government reacts when money is short? One would think that no one had ever experienced the loss of a job, reduction of income or unexpected expenses. As regular citizens, we must determine how to deal with these events. ...more

February 16, 2008

Has anyone noticed how the government reacts when money is short? ...more

February 15, 2008

A comment heard on the radio aroused a compelling response. The caller said that both parties contributed to the serious crisis facing the country today, and contributed to the enormous $9 trillion national debt, and severe Social Security, Medicare-Medicaid crises. It is ironic that the caller cited the last 40-50 years. Consider this. It took 200 years (1787 to 1980) for the national debt to reach $1 trillion. It took 27 years for it to balloon to $9 trillion (1980 to 2007). Ergo: $6 trillion (1980-1992); +$2 trillion (1992-2001); -$5 trillion (2001 to 2007). Total: $9 trillion. So, who was in charge during those years? Who caused the $7 trillion hit on the economy in 2000? Who provided the prescription drug bill that was to cost $400 billion, but ballooned to $1 trillion and caused health care cost to increase 10 to 15 percent each year? Who allowed the corporations to duck their obligations for pensions all across this country? Who sat by while the banks and mortgage corporations manipulated the hapless home buyers to sign those sub-prime mortgages? As an immediate first step to resolve the crisis, who bought $2 millions of those egregious loans, then reduced interest rates for the banks and mortgagors, but left those hapless mortgagees swinging in the wind? Who is being held accountable? Where are those trillions and trillions of dollars? The answers? Corporations and our government! ...more

February 2, 2008

More Cuts On The Way Regarding "A Sigh Of Property Tax Relief" (front page, Jan. 30): ...more

February 1, 2008

County Commissioner Al Higginbotham spent about an hour Friday with members of the South Shore Roundtable answering questions about regional planning, county spending and the upcoming vote on property taxes. ...more

January 23, 2008

I am a member of the board for our homeowner association. The budget for the past couple of years has been extremely difficult to properly assess due to the rise in insurance costs and other expenses. ...more

January 19, 2008

Although the national trend in holiday giving appears on the rise, many Tampa charities are falling short of end-of-year goals, even as they're serving more clients than ever. ...more

December 30, 2007