Would It Be Too Much to Ask To Use Common Sense vs A Scripted Budget Process This Year?

CAN WE APPLY COMMON SENSE THIS YEAR?

It is that time of year again when our town council has to make a decision on our Municipal Budget.  After the Public Hearing, it would appear that once again the town council will approve a budget increase causing our taxes to rise again.  This happened last year and we suffered another tax increase.  This tax increase is caused by the town spending more than it collects in revenue.  This is not hard to understand.

Some of the things which are hard to understand are why our town council approved the transfer of approximately $145,000 just 52 days into the new budget year.  Normally, a budget is prepared allocating so much money to each department to operate based on the previous year’s operating costs.  Now at the END of the year, some departments have more money left over and some departments have spent more than was allocated so the Finance Director transfers monies from the departments that have excess money to the departments which over spent.  This is a normal acceptable accounting practice.

Another abnormality by our town council is when they find it necessary to raise our taxes to cover a shortage in revenue and 66 days later approve over a million dollars carried forward from the previous year.  According to the council these were funds allocated for projects.  We all know that the only project the council had approved was the trails project and that was for $321,000 dollars.  The cause of the tax increase was a shortage of revenue of $546,000.  After you take out the trails project from this million dollars there is still over $800,000 tax dollars remaining which was more than enough to apply to the shortfall.  Had these tax dollars been applied against our revenue shortage there would have been no need to raise taxes.  This is not rocket science but our town councilors cannot comprehend this.

Now comes the hard stuff, the town council raised our taxes last year to cover their spending and carried forward over a million dollars; so why are we going to suffer another tax increase this year?  What happened to the million tax dollars that was carried forward from last year and added to the approved budget;  how much will be carried forward this year?  There have been no projects approved or completed according to the town so where did our tax dollars go?  We all realize the town is pumping additional tax dollars into the Communication Center.  Chief Brooks has asked for additional personnel for the Communication Center which will cost the taxpayers additional tax dollars.  The town could save the taxpayers over $500,000 tax dollars a year by allowing to County to provide dispatch services.   Instead of maintaining our Communication Center, the town would pay ONLY for the services used.

It would be nice if our town council took into consideration tax dollars that are going to be carried forward and apply these tax dollars to the revenue shortage before they raise our taxes again this year.

Larry Fillmore