Submitted by Guest Apu (not verified) on Thu, 03/10/2011 - 4:17pm.
By the way, to me it seems like WWAY is incorrectly saying that R3 is "subsidized" by taxpayers. As commonly used, a subsidy is paid out to a person or company to help stop the decline of their industry, like subsidies paid to farmers who produce a crop, where the government isn't buying the crop, just paying the farmer an extra amount on top of what he sells it for in the open market. For these subsidies, the government doesn't get anything in return.
In the case of R3, the government is entering into a purchase of services agreement. A contract was put out for bid, and R3 won the contract. The county is agreeing to pay what they have deemed to be a fair price for the services to be rendered. The taxpayers aren't paying an artificially high price (a subsidy) for the services.
Not only that, R3 put up a bond which they forfeit if they can't honor their obligations. That bond is the only thing they might "owe the people of New Hanover County" at this point.
By the way, to me it seems
By the way, to me it seems like WWAY is incorrectly saying that R3 is "subsidized" by taxpayers. As commonly used, a subsidy is paid out to a person or company to help stop the decline of their industry, like subsidies paid to farmers who produce a crop, where the government isn't buying the crop, just paying the farmer an extra amount on top of what he sells it for in the open market. For these subsidies, the government doesn't get anything in return.
In the case of R3, the government is entering into a purchase of services agreement. A contract was put out for bid, and R3 won the contract. The county is agreeing to pay what they have deemed to be a fair price for the services to be rendered. The taxpayers aren't paying an artificially high price (a subsidy) for the services.
Not only that, R3 put up a bond which they forfeit if they can't honor their obligations. That bond is the only thing they might "owe the people of New Hanover County" at this point.