Can’t spare a square
by Lori Barrett | April 24, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Posted in money
Montgomery County is still struggling with its budget. Despite a $297 million deficit, officials opted to give county employees some decent raises a few weeks ago. Now they’re looking for some ways to save money.
One option: rationing toilet paper.
Council members were given six pages of budget cut recommendations as suggested by some of the county’s employees. One of the ideas is to limit inmates’ toilet paper supplies — to two or three rolls per week. Apparently the MoCo inmates deliberately clog toilets to pass time, thus wasting money on the paper itself and the cost of repair.
Somehow I doubt this plan would put even a small dent in the $297 million shortfall, but I have to give them credit for being creative.
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April 25th, 2008 at 1:57 am | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
Hmmm. They gave gov. workers a raise and restricted inmates' toilet paper. I see no problem here.
April 25th, 2008 at 2:01 am | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
Rationing government toilet paper was the subject of a multi-page memo in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. You can see it here, but you'll have to scroll down to Chapter 37. Better still, read the whole book.
April 25th, 2008 at 2:02 am | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
Whoops...didn't know the link wouldn't publish. Try this:
http://vx.netlux.org/lib/mns00.html
April 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
Where is this Montgomery County you speak of? I’ve never heard of such a county in the Baltimore metropolitan area. In fact, I don’t think such a county exists in metropolitan Baltimore. Maybe in some other city’s metropolitan area, but not Baltimore’s.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:35 pm | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
Claude: Thanks for the link, although I can't say I'm a huge sci-fi fan. But once I have a few extra minutes, I'll give it a closer read.
Where? I know, it's outside of our little bubble here, but it is still in the small state of Maryland after all. Just trying to expand the horizon a bit.