Want to know why the largest north county governments have been run so poorly in recent years? All one had to do was read the coverage of this week’s Finance Committee meeting in the city of Dunkirk.

Staff writer M.J. Stafford summed it up well in one paragraph: “For the first time in memory, Treasurer Mark Woods freely handed out a financial report to members of the public, without anyone needing to ask. The report showed a city bank balance of exactly $493,548.26 as of July 31.”

Is it any wonder why the government is so good at spending your money? Most often, these elected representatives — who are tasked with balancing a budget — do not even know or understand the fiscal viability or how to read a budget when it comes to the multi-million dollar entity they are supposed to be overseeing.

Worse in Dunkirk’s case is the apparent lack of understanding by the city treasurer, who has been elected for more than two decades to an office that he is — in a view from the outside — struggling to manage.

Dunkirk’s doomsday 84% property tax increase was years in the making with one treasurer at the helm. It happened due to the lack of attention to financial details by those elected and those employed to follow the money in a budget that is now $28 million and growing annually.

Fredonia’s situation is not as definitive, but just as irresponsible. Are trustees seeing financial spreadsheets at their meetings?

It’s possible they are not, but they do get regular briefings from Erlyssa LeBeau regarding the often bad news over deficits. That is more than Dunkirk was receiving until this month.

For all of Chautauqua County, there is a huge lesson in both of these messes. Besides the obvious fact that we have too much government, we as citizens are being forced to elect far too many who are unable to balance their own checkbook — and adding to the tax burden through careless spending decisions.

Let’s face it. Money, it has been said, is the root of all evil. But it is a lack of fiscal insight and carelessness that has been the real devil for those who live in Dunkirk and Fredonia.