By Staff
Even as the economy begins to stabilize, area governments are playing it safe as they look toward a new fiscal year.
Escambia County, Brewton, East Brewton and both school systems have passed their budgets for the upcoming year, and all have planned conservatively for the year.
Even so, school districts across the state are looking at the likelihood of proration just as the new fiscal year gets under way, because state tax revenues have fallen below the expectations legislators assumed when they met last year.
The City of East Brewton has had to lay off part-time workers, and both Brewton and Escambia County have also been conservative in their planning.
What can we do? We can continue to help our local governments by continuing to buy local.
The economy has hit all of us — not only at work but in our wallets — but even when we are cutting back, we still have to shop for groceries, gas and other essentials.
Please remember to shop at home. The sales tax revenue in our community fuels the budgets for Brewton and East Brewton. That means that we have better services and the cities are able to employ more people. To a much lesser extent, that money also helps Escambia County and both of our school districts.
We hope that as we all look to an improved economy, we can continue to do our part to help ourselves at home.