It is no surprise to anyone who has read the newspapers for the last year, that Dartmouth is facing a fiscal crisis. How have our town leaders responded?
Well, we learned at the last Select Board meeting that the heads of a least two departments had no idea that they would be required to cut their budgets. In fact, both had planned to come before the Select Board to lay out their case for an increase. They were told on Friday afternoon that they would get a 10% cut in funding and to prepare their presentation for Monday accordingly.
One might expect prudent management, knowing that the town revenue was falling short of expenses, to call together all the department heads, lay out the grim fiscal forecast, get to work to trim costs, brainstorm for new ideas, and plan for future hard times. Is that what has happened in Dartmouth? No, department heads were told to present their needs budget. Not a reduced budget but their needs budget. Only just last week was information on the degree of cuts given to the department heads. Consequently, those department heads have not been focused on how they might get by with less, what their department could do to mitigate the impact of those cuts, or maybe even come up with innovative ways to do so. No, they have been planning on hiring more employees we can't afford and opening buildings we can't maintain. Finally the public gets the theater of these department heads expressing their consternation when they find out they have been given the bait and switch.
Now the best plan they can come up with is to throw the responsibility for managing the town's finances on the taxpayers in a menu based override. It really beyond sad and we deserve better.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Crisis! What crisis?
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2 comments:
Bill, Bill, Bill,
The Town, the Departments, the Department Heads, the Boards, the Agencies, and the people of Dartmouth have all known (if they have been paying attention) that this year would be worse than last year and that we were looking at another gap situation. AS YOU KNOW AND APPEAR TO SUPPORT IN PREVIOUS POSTS, the budgeting process has been revised, an approach adopted by the Selectboard and the Finance Committee. The Department Head were well aware of the lack of funding and that their budgets would be affected. What the Department Heads were confronted with was the institution of the adopted forward looking budgeting process. How can you support the institution of that change and then jump on a bandwagon of protest. Please!!!! At the very least be consistent. The SelectBoard has made the very difficult changes required in these difficult times. The public witnessed the reality of the changes that we have made on the services in Town. Does that reality truly hit home, YES. Although I do not know you Bill, at least from some of your previous post, I thought you were a reasonable and well-intentioned person(although, of course I do not agree with all of your statements). However, from this post I question your intentions and to what end you will seek to achieve them. Good luck in your campaign Bill.
Kathleen, I have indicated that I believe an override is needed. The question that remains is whether or not the voters will approve it. An important component of their decision is that they trust the town administration to plan and act prudently.
When the Chief and Library Director appear in a public meeting and say they were notified over the weekend as to the extent of the cuts, it raises questions in the minds of many as to what kind of planning is taking place. I don't doubt that the department heads have been taking action. The library has been particularly creative in trying to raise funds. The Chief has dutifully reduced his expenditures over the past few years, as requested, without complaint. But you went over the items in the DOR report from last July that included the forward looking plan and budget summit. Yep, sure thing, we're doing those. Then the department heads come in and are clearly dismayed. This goes to the credibility of what you've said in your comment. Obviously they were told one thing earlier and another the Friday before their presentation. They both said the same thing. The conclusion I draw(read down in comments of linked post for conclusion) is that there has not been planning from last year onward on the impact of our rising tide of red ink. Pointing at the policies put in place a few weeks ago does not excuse the fact that they should have been adopted last year or the year before. Lots of people understand that fact. We have had plenty of time spent on which street lights to turn out but little on the root causes of our crisis.
Add the revelation in op-ed letters(link here) by Bev Days this week in the Chronicle and S-T that the Select Board renegotiated contracts early and included language that was clearly not in the interests of the town. The end result is a chronic mistrust by the taxpayers that the town is acting in the best interests of the people who foot the bill. The people don't doubt that the town needs money They just want assurances that they are not throwing money down a bottomless hole. Clearly news about these contracts raises suspicions about who is safeguarding the taxpayers interests. Would you care to explain why these employees, the Executive Administrator, Budget Director, DPW Superintendant, Director of Assessing, Director of Inspectional Services, Town Accountant, Harbormaster, and municipal paralegal have job, salary and benefit guarantees and how the taxpayers interests are served by this contract language? Better yet, answer this question in public meeting because this is the topic in coffee shops all over town. The bottom line is that the people of the town don't trust their government. That is the hurdle we have to clear to get an override passed.
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