Prosecutor needs accounting lesson
Peter Lucido’s Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office is on another of his never ending crusades to get more money instead of dealing effectively with the tens-of-millions of dollars he gets from Macomb County businesses and private taxpayers, and federal and state grants.
Macomb County taxpayers, who are just beginning to feel some relief from the past 2 years of inflation, are being led to believe Lucido’s overworked staff has found a way to increase Macomb County’s Property tax revenue by a million dollars — as if that money is going to appear out of nowhere, at no extra cost to taxpayers. Lucido’s Chief of Special Prosecution, Joe Biondo, pronounced Macomb County’s currently projected property tax revenue is underestimated by $1 million — a claim disputed by Macomb County Finance Director Stephen Smigiel, who has served in various Macomb County accounting positions since 1997, so it’s a good bet he knows more about how to correctly estimate our estimated tax revenues than a “self-proclaimed” overworked lawyer who somehow found time from his assigned duties to come up with figures that fit neatly into Lucido’s addiction to squeezing more money from taxpayers.
Smigiel reportedly stated Macomb County’s projected property growth for the coming year is 6% — which is 5% for inflation, and is limited by State Law, plus 1% for growth. It would seem an upper level lawyer, like Biondo, would have easily found the law that limits the annual growth in estimated tax growth. Smigiel also stated Biondo’s figures do not match Smigiel’s numbers and he doesn’t know where Biondo conjured up his figures. But to show what kind of team player Biondo is, along with his boss, Lucido who supports Biondo’s presentation, Biondo claimed “since I found it” two-thirds of the million dollars in “new taxes” should go to the Prosecutors Office, and let the other one-third be fought over, like scraps, by the other Macomb County departments.
Former Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor, Molly Zappitell brought up an interesting fact when she pointed out Lucido claimed the number of trials would become a tsunami if he didn’t receive all of the increase monies he was demanding, yet the number of trials now are not even close to what they were 4 to 5 years ago, when there were less staff and resources in the Prosecutors office. Lucido claims to be a fiscal conservative Republican, but he has been constantly in the news over the past 22 months whining about how he needs more money, more staff, more resources, etc., instead of concentrating on how he can stretch the tens-of-millions of dollars he currently gets from Macomb County taxpayers, state and federal grants.
Lucido should sit down with Candice Miller to figure out how to operated within a budget.
William D. Krull
Roseville