The fiscal picture is grim
I’m writing like I’m on deadline tonight, because I made off with part of acting Town Administrator Tim McInerney’s copy of the town budget for fiscal year 2010. I offered him a cookie in exchange, a good one, fresh-baked right before the meeting with my own two hands (and Kitchen-Aid mixer), but he doesn’t like to snack after 10 at night (The Selectmen, on the other hand, had no such reservations. Don’t think I’m going to make a regular habit of this, guys).
The overall operating budget for FY 2010 — this is the one we’re going to be talking about at Town Meeting, so pay attention — is $39,354,916, an increase of 3.24 percent over FY ’09. This is all based on the state level-funding Chapter 70 (education) funds at $8,180,814 and reducing aid to $1,865,755 from $2,148,691. Estimated revenues from property taxes are $24,408,674, with only $200,000 from new growth (Please note that I was taking notes in semi-darkness from a highly informative Powerpoint. He didn’t even throw in a single unnecessary animated .gif, I’m impressed.)
How does this break down? I’m going to bring a thumb drive to the Municipal Building tomorrow and hopefully get at least a part of the entire budget (he had these giant black binders, very impressive) to put up here so you can look at it all yourself. But here are the biggies:
- General government goes down 4.42 percent to $2,019,849
- Public safety goes up 2.49 percent to $2,452,730
- Public works goes down 6.30 percent to $2,849,700
- Sewer goes up 2.30 percent to $1,015,677
- Health and human services sees a .48 percent reduction to $360,852 due to a change in healthcare plans
- Culture and recreation is reduced by .42 percent to $729,136
- “Unclassified” is up by 7.3 percent to $5,156,138
- Debt service is up by 13.2 percent to $2,440,789
What about the schools? Education goes up by 3.75 percent to $22,330,045 because a reduction, McInerney told Selectmen, would be disasterous.
“Without a first-rate school system, you’re not going to have economic development… you’re not going to have a sustainable economy,” he said.
Layoffs should not be seen in any department with this budget, McInerney said. The town is also implementing several cost-saving measures, among them consolidating all cell phones under one provider, curtailing cell phone use to only personnel who are required to be on call and consolidating services among departments (yes, the school department is included there).
The budget also assumes a favorite commenter topic: we will be seeing Pay As You Throw and we will be paying per bag.
And, finally, here are some fun statistics:
- Our population is now 18,157
- The median income for the town is $66,396
- The average home in town is valued at $370,800
- The average tax bill on that home is $4,015.64
- 91 percent of our tax base is residential
- The town’s worth is $2.35 billion
- Our bond rating is AA
Comment on all that food for thought, will you?
GG brings cookies, and the TA brings binders. A municipal potluck bonanza!
I have two thoughts…
I’m curious about the top percentage loss- Public works getting notched down 6.30%. Is there any explanation of what exactly is getting cut out for 6.3%?
I also appreciate the connection of education with a sustainable/thriving economy. So often it seems the gauge-the-school budget folks put the school spending in terms of a perk, or bonus , for new families at the detriment of non-families. But as pointed out, that isn’t the case. There is no doubt that the school system needs to work to be more efficient, and simply throwing money at the school doesn’t make it “first-rate” but … crappy schools aint good for the town.
The reduction in public works is in the sanitation budget. Not only is the number reduced FY09 due to overbudgeting and a lower contract amount (which is good because that’s part of what is making up the for the reduction in local aid), but the FY10 budget is reduced through PAYT bag revenue. The school budget is still in review – There are a number of factors that contribute to the increase – enrollment, etc… But, this is just the beginning – that budget, along with all department budgets – will go through alot of scrutiny before presentation to TM in May. As I’ve said in other posts – shared/consolidated services is something we have to investigate to be sure we’re allocating resources efficiently.
Hurray for PAYT! Hopefully, it will motivate people to cut down on their amount of waste and increase their recycling. I understand that some see it as merely a new tax, but perhaps it is the price we pay for our consumerism. And I agree with Michael and Tim M. that thriving schools encourage a thriving economy. Thanks, Jenn, for providing all the info – we’ll stay tuned!
Watched the entire meeting on TV last nite.
First comment: in regards to the hiring on the new mechanic, it was nice to have some open discourse re: the hiring, but I did not see any hard data to support his hiring or support outsourcing truck/car maintenance. I would expect the DPW director, who makes a pretty good salary here at town, would have hard numbers. MaryAnn asked him the average age of the fleet, we all got a non-answer. I would expect & I would think the BOS would expect numbers, not words. Maybe we’re completely in the right to hire a mechanic, but until we know what the true cost is of preventive maint & repairs costs to the fleet, we don’t really know, do we? We know what it costs to hire a person (salary, health ins & pension) but we still don’t know what it costs to maintain our fleet.
Still would like to see a break out of the work that is done.
2nd.. permits to resurface my driveway??? Thankfully it was voted it down for now. Have we all gone permit crazy?? No, no & no. What a waste of time & money. I was quite enjoying the exchange between Toma & Pete Adams. Essentially, Toma took some by-law that drafted/used when he was employed by the Town of Tewksbury & just “reprinted” it for last night’s meeting. Pete called him out on that. It was a bit tense.
Do we really need to regulate our driveways. The consesus was that there are 4,000+ driveways in Grafton. Out of that number, a few maybe be problematic with regards to runoff. Does this constitute the need for permits & regulations for the average homeowner? This new regulation had all sorts of wording about making the homeowner getting plot plans, paying for extra drainage (that could cost upwards of $10k and not guaranteed to work) Silly….I would say if there needs to be some regulation, make it on new homes/driveways. Not existing. I think some of the BOS will work with Toma to “redraft” something that works for our town, not Tewksbury.
Common sense seems to have gone out the window. Big gov’t is trying to blow in!
Did I hear the PAYT was only going to be a bag fee & not an annual fee?
Statistics I’ve seen on PAYT don’t increase recycling as much as you think. What it most likely will do is lower our solid waste numbers. So either people throw their trash somewhere else or they just don’t throw it out.
But we should see an increase in our recycling numbers. Too bad it had to come down to this. I know I put out much more recycling than trash. I see others who still don’t even recycling.
Wednesday morning edit: I did not mention here where some of the funding is coming from, and I think it’s important to highlight. The budget assumes $600,000 will be transferable from “free” cash (that would be money left in accounts from FY ’09 due to cost savings, overbudgeting, etc.) and $300,000 from the stabilization fund.
“The money that we are using, the free cash, stabilization, will never come back… but times like these are what they’re for,” McInerney said.
We need more transparency. Line items are one level down from a total town budget, but we need more. I have scoured the 2007 Grafton Town report but I still can’t find the costs of healthcare, fuel costs… How much do town employees pay for healthcare as a total and as a percentage, what are their co-pays, have we seriously investigated GIC for healthcare (I want to know the numbers and not some summary dismissal of GIC not being cost-effective). When is the town pension system going to be reformed? We have a ways to go and the people need to know the facts.
The Town Report is a summary only. The complete budget – by department – is available for anyone to look through in the Selectmen’s office. Healthcare contributions are negotiated with the respective unions. All municipal employees saw an increase in their co-pays this past year, but as you might expect, those payments still do not equal what the private sector pays – the Town Administrator can provide the details. As for GIC – there was some attempt more than a year ago to look at the cost-savings. My understanding ( I wasn’t there) is that a combination of limited savings and bad timing of contract negotiations took it off the table. Before someone else suggests this is a dismissive response – I’m happy to secure whatever analysis was completed and make it available here. Again….budget is public, meetings are public, call 508-839-5335 x180 and ask the questions you want answered.
I’ll also be putting up an electronic copy later today, as soon as I get the document via email.
“It’s password protected… so you can’t change the numbers,” Tim joked.
Would it be possible to put the budget (including details) on line? I know it is possible but the question is can it be done? Seeing the analysis of why GIC was not chosen as an option would be very helpful since I see other towns saving lots of money going to it. I also seem to remember the Gov was going to encourage towns to go to GIC or face fines(?) for non0usage.