Today's Chronicle has a letter from Select Board candidate, Frank Gracie, on the financial situation of our town. Read it here. Mr. Gracie points out that our current situation was entirely foreseeable. Mr. Gracie says,
"there was no disagreement on what was the root cause of our problem. Our projected rate of expense growth was 3% higher than the expected revenue growth."I agree with his assessment...
...He goes on to say,
"We have been far too reactive and not proactive at all. Drastic cuts will be in order because of not planning, and if we don't fix our expenses soon we will just lose service after service after service."
Again I couldn't agree more.
Finally he concludes,
"I applaud the progress our good-intentioned leaders have made, but it isn't nearly enough to make our budget stable and sustaining. If we had passed the $8.5 million override we would be still be in the same situation, except our taxes would be higher. We need to "light a fire" or each year will just be deja vu over and over again."
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31 comments:
Bill-- Please tell us how to "fix our expenses" so that we won't "just lose service after service after service," as described by Frank Gracie. Please describe the specific steps needed to achieve this goal.
Mr. Gracie is obviously the only one running for Carney's seat that has a grasp on the fiscal issues facing our town.
Consolidate, privatize or contract out, regionalize. I posted many months ago about what our town needed and why. See here
In a nutshell, our expenses cannot grow faster than our revenues.
Bill, you dont always get what you paid for in privatization. An example of that is NYC refuge dept. They have been privatized for years and there has been nothing but financial problems
two words "big dig"
so in a nutshell eventually since we want to pay nothing we will get nothing.
What Bill and Frank dont want to tell you is revenue will have to increase . thats right higher taxes. After all the privitizing and cutting services we still cant afford a bare bones town management with the tax rate we pay now. Some people have realized this and dont argue but some people around here still think its 1982 and these same people wont be happy until our tax rate is 351 out of 351. But then we will still be paying too much in taxes and the taxes we pay should pay for everything under the sun.
Until the underlying problem is fixed and that is the rate of growth of expense exceeds the rate of growth of revenue. Adding revenue is bailing against the tide. Witness as Frank points out, $4 million in new revenue in the past two years and another deficit. It would take substantial and ever increasing yearly overrides to sustain the budget. Your taxes would quickly become among the highest in the state. Do you think that is true? If not, why not? Please show how we can have a 5% increase in expense and a 3% increase in revenue and not always be in the hole. That 2% difference equals $1.4 million next year and the number goes up and up.
Those of you that keep wanting to play the "tax card" aren't doing the math. In the current DOR database for FY09 there are 319 communities listed for tax bills. If you add our fire tax for dist. 2, and assume an average PAYT cost of 2 large trash bags a week, we rank 55% of the way on the list, towards the lowest.
That means that we are pretty much in the middle on what we pay. Why some people think we don't pay enough taxes unless we are in the "top tier" is beyond me. More taxes is not the answer, efficiency in government is.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't look for new creative ways to get stable and sustaining revenue, but people pay enough. 45% of the communities run their government with their taxpayers paying less than we do.
Since the PAYT program was instituted we have made a practice of throwing out 1 large bag a week. Its a family of four, takes some doing but its done and that's what I see up and down my block. What happens when another $50/year is knocked off the tax bill? More taxes is part of the answer but nobody wants to say it.
Not sure what you are talking about. Where do you get $50. being knocked off the tax bill?
Frank please don't play the fire tax game. Have you looked at the equipment our Fire Departments have lately? Now there's where we should be doing some consolidating!
Some people don't include the fire district taxes and PAYT fees when looking at what we pay for town services. Adding them in when comparing between towns who offer those services as part of the property tax is fair.
I think 1 large bag a week is not a good average even though that is also what I use. I still see a lot of homes with 4 bags out.
But, assuming only 1 large bag a week that changes the total by $104, and moves us to 59% toward the lowest. I think the point is still the same.
I don't know why you call including the fire tax a game. The vast majority of communities in the state have fire and trash as part of their basic tax bill. We don't, so it needs to be added in.
What is done with the fire tax money that is collected is a completely different subject, but if you own a home in town you pay it.
Bill & GrankG: This appears confusing in that Dartmouth ranks 246 of 314 towns in Mass based on the DOR database. You both seem to be saying that adding PAYT et al in reality brings Dartmouth from the 77th percentile all the way up to about the 50th percentile in terms of comparative taxes?
Is this true?
I call it a game because Patrick Deval when he was here called it that. He even went so far as to talk about wanting to do away with it because many Fire Departments appear to place a disproportionate burden on the taxpayer and yet you don't pay any attention to them. Now why is that?
Of those 319 towns did you individually account for the costs of all their services? I'm not convinced anyone knows how privatization, etc . will pan out but it is foolish not to give it serious consideration. I am just worried that when we go down this path we will stubbornly insist on following through with it even if it isn't the savings that have been implied.
Can't help but thinking that if we do go the privatization route and, as you say, we will still insist on staying the course even if we can see it is not working out, what's the difference from that with what we are doing now?
Seems to me that right now, even though we need something to change, there are clearly people in town, even in the government, who still want the same old, same old, even if that's not working.
Since that's the case, why not give something new a chance?
You have to wonder why there is such opposition in some camps.
I think some people, including myself, believe that you are willing to let everything good about Dartmouth go down the drain, simply because it is not mandated by the state. I don't want to become a culturally dead community that takes pride in nothing.
How about a town that can offer nothing at all? If we continue on our current path, Dartmouth will only be able to offer mandated services and we may eventually have to pay fees for those too. We already pay for trash. How about an ice & snow fee? It is not working so to sit back and say we shouldn't try anything else is foolish.
We have a regional Voc High School and guess what?
We got shafted tow years ago with a newly devised formula that makes us pay a ton more money. We've got no say in the matter. This year its happened again and guess what? We've got no say in it either. Regionalization cuts both ways.
Anonymous January 29, 2009 6:18 PM - Yes, you have it correct. With the example of 1 large trash bag we move up to 188, with 2 large, 177.
When looking at the DOR database-if Dartmouth does not include the PAYT figure in the number how do we know what other communties have in their numbers? Does'nt this make comparisons difficult if not impossible?
Anonymous January 29, 2009 8:37 PM - The DOR tax bill data reports what is paid in each community for the average home. This money of course goes into the General Fund, and the assumption by them is that all normal services are paid from that.
For most communities these services include fire department support and trash pickup. There are a couple, like us, that have a separate charge for fire, and some others that have a separate charge for trash, but the general paying of all other government services is indicated in the base bill.
In order to put things on level ground we need to add in our "extra" costs that are already there for others, otherwise a comparison of what the taxpayers contribute in their respective communities is shaded.
With regard to privatization, I agree with you. While any change we pursue needs to be treated with caution and be well thought out, privatization needs an extra level of scrutiny.
My experience at Polaroid where I lived through the financial problems and the necessary changes has taught me that sometimes privatization works and sometimes it doesn't. The problem is that you lose control of many details.
Outsourcing is better than privatization because you retain control, but my first choice for all change is to try and keep as much as is possible internal. Consolidation and streamlining should always be the first choice, and can be a win-win for many of the good employees and the managing entity.
Regionalization can be good too, but the devil is in the details. Things like who is in charge of what, who is responsible, etc., all need to be well thought out and defined.
We are at the point where all things need to be on the table for discussion, and our leaders need to be smart about what is actually changed and implemented, but we DO need to change things for a better future. We need to keep looking for stable sustaining revenue, but we need to cut our expense growth to something that is manageable.
The problem is not the actual expenses but rather the rate of growth of the expenses. It doesn't match our rate of revenue growth, and hasn't for some time, which is why we have to scramble every year to balance the budget.
Our infrastructure is falling apart because for about the last 6 years we have been using money that would have normally been available for that, capital improvements, to balance the budget.
Anonymous January 30, 2009 11:38 AM - Yes, you are correct, it is extremely difficult. Unfortunately that doesn't stop folks from just taking things at face value and concluding our taxes are too low. We should always try to normalize the data as best we can.
When I was on the Tax Classification Committee we spent a LOT of time digging at all the things that rightfully concern you. It is hard to get specific information for communities, but not impossible. We found the biggest differences were in the fire tax and trash areas. It would nice if the DOR changed their ways but there is no sign of that.
To get the best information you can, you need to investigate each community you want to include in a comparison, and yes that is a LOT of work.
I did a lot of that when I continued my studies for the split tax. The good news is that by far, most communities include everything in the base tax bill. Of course that is not known until one looks.
To just take the basic reporting from the DOR is the least accurate to do a comparison. To adjust where you know adjustments are called for is much better. The best method which no one really has the time for, is to investigate all 351 communities and verify all.
My experience in doing this has taught me that we are clearly among those that need the biggest correction, if not the biggest, because we have had a separate fire tax for years, and there aren't more than a couple of other places that do that, even now. Trash is the new player in the equation for us, and most likely for others as time goes on. Our trash charges are higher than most others that charge for trash too.
While the fire tax has been a constant for us, the addition of trash AND the passed overrides is what has moved us up to the middle of the pack. We used to be in the bottom third.
With a current position of being in the middle it is not likely that we would move more than a few slots if the entire database was validated today. None of that would change the point that we are not close to being the "cheapest" taxpayers in the state.
FrankG: Thank you for your efforts at trying to clarify this comparative tax issue between Dartmouth and other towns. How do additional fees such as busing and sports impact the equation?
Thanks again.
The extra school fees probably don't make much difference in the tax rate because they are pretty much a fact of life throughout the Commonwealth. I downloaded the spread sheet awhile back and a majority of municipalities have them in varied forms. There are a few communities that don't have them though. New Bedford and Fairhaven come to mind.
There are so many different fees it would drive one crazy to try and include everything. Even things that are considered a major service like water and sewer aren't included because some pay the community for it and some don't.
Where the line is typically drawn is for services that everyone across the state uses and pays for, and then is it included in the base tax bill or an added cost.
You are very welcome, and I hope the discussion has been useful.
They make a difference to the parents that have to pay for them however. Not that it matters in Dartmouth.
Taunton, Somerset, Fall River, Marion no school fees either...but who's counting?
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