Almost at the Finish Line
• In New Gloucester,6-6-2010
Well we are almost to the finish line on the town loader and Articles 2, and 11. I sat in on the discussions of CIP and the budget committee along with the Public meeting. Discussions ranged with many different ideas on how solutions can be achieved. CIP had the issue of the loader well in hand and gave their recommendation to the budget committee. The budget committee remained with their original proposal led by Mr. Zuckerman. His position is very defendable. It will save money for the town and will only impact those utilizing the assessor's office by possibly having to make appointments to access town information. Since there are no guide lines on what is to be negotiated by the Administration, whether there is a presence one day a week or only by appointment, if voted in we will adapt. However if we accept this option I would suggest we include in our request for bid, we write our RFP with a bid for an hourly rate verses a yearly bid. Once people have to make an appointment to utilize a town department that need will probably diminish. The successful bidder will still need to fulfill the requirements of the office but the town would have a full documented accounting by hour of what is being done for the town. Also I would remove access of town maps and deeds as the town's responsibility unless requested by a tax payer and let the Realtors and others who need access to this information pay the bidder directly, as they are making their living from their searches of this material which otherwise would be at the tax payer expense. This proposal I feel would save even more than Mr. Zuckerman's proposal. It's the old additive "Let those who use it pay for it". It will also be interesting in the future if this concept will spread to the Code enforcement department as well as the front office.
Other comments were made concerning the Undesignated Fund Balance and the utilization of it. As I have claimed in the past I have stated it is over taxation, others have differed in that claim so I will try to explain my concept of it. That fund is an unfunded amount of money. It is comprised of unspent monies that were approved by the budget committee and the selectmen and ultimately voted on by the voter. If the department heads do not expend their total budgets due to higher than anticipated revenues and frugal administration of their budgets the monies are returned to the undesignated fund, which are all derived from taxes. Also funding this fund is interest derived from the fund balance. This fund would also be larger if all interest from investments, such as the Capital Reserve Account were included. At town meeting when we vote to put in monies into the Capital Reserve Accounts the article calls for the amount only, articles have never been written to include the interest from those accounts to remain with those accounts. For example an account voted to be funded for $20,000 to purchase a pickup in five years may receive, depending on interest rates $500.00. We purchase the truck for $20,000.00 and the remaining $500.00 remains in that account until the Auditor recommends' removal and deposited into the UDF. All interest should be returned to the UDF.
A better idea would be to have the budget committee to budget to a balanced budget. This year we removed more than $480.000.00 from the UDF to subsidize to budget to hold our tax rate from rising to high. Soon than later this fund will be dried up at this rate. The selectman and budget committee ten years ago should have been working towards a balanced budget. It has also been said that we should not be funding employee positions from the UDF. As I see it that is exactly what we did this year with the position of Assistant Planner. This is a non revenue position and in a balanced budget it would have raised the tax rate; however the increase in that account could not come from any where but from the UDF. If that position was not approved at town meeting, the amount for that position could have reduced from the undesignated fund request without any impact to the proposed budget. Thus we funded a full time position with benefits from the UDF.
Also in stated at the public is that the draft article will be written in the manner as they were in the 1990's. The change to the way the articles are written were contributed to a prior town manager but in reality it was the sole responsibility of the selectmen who changed the method of writing the articles to limit the voter at town meeting from raising monies higher than the article as to not affect the proposed budget. This is why the articles are still written it this manner so that the proposed budget cannot be changed at town meeting and the voter is limited in their vote.
Again this is just one voters perspective and would encourage any correction to any of my statements now or previous the be challenged or corrected in this format as the last thing I wish to do is misinform the voter.
Thank you for your time.
Roger Levasseur
New Gloucester
