Denton's "No Tax Inccrease" Budget

When does a fee become a tax? When it is passed on to customers. In the budget the city officials say the rates for utilities will stay the same. Really? Franchise fees came about as a result of deregulation. Anytime a phone company, electric company, or cable company wanted to do business, they paid a fee. It made sense because they were using city rights of way to hook up the customers.
But what sense does it make for the city to charge itself a franchise fee? How can one department be charged by another department and all the employees be on the same payroll – ours?
If transparency is the buss word, why not simply say rates will go up. In this day of politicians and governments being intentionally dishonest, must we get this from our city? If you want to raise the amount of money the city rakes in with it’s monopoly of utilities, be man enough to say it. Do enough people in the city really think we are that stupid?
Of course, since fees are not shown on our utility bills, they may think we don’t know. Anyone who has paid a bill knows that the utility company passes along every fee, charge, surcharge, and tax to the customer.