This is a cautionary tale for regional purchase of goods and services. As the Fall River Times Herald reports, Freetown was able to get a better price for road salt than the regional price obtained by SRPEDD. So while it is a good thing to try to aggregate demand and try to get a better price, it is also wise to keep your eyes open for a better deal. I think that is the lesson to be learned from this case. I also agree with Freetown Selectman, who said,
"We’ve barely scratched the surface. No doubt that there will be a number of kinks to work out, the biggest being the human factor. Our current purchasing and town services have been over a century in the making from when towns stopped working together and sharing services, it will take ...
... a concerted effort by all to not only identify opportunities for improvement but more importantly, implement change. If we don’t do this, our citizens will see further deterioration of services as funds are instead channeled to areas where we could have saved money by working together as a regional partner.”
Opponents of regional efforts will point to results such as this as a reason to abandon the effort to find regional solutions. I think that is short sighted and not indicative of the possible savings that are there. What are your thoughts?
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We should be consolidating our own services. In Tewksbury, they consolidated planning, zoning and building into one economic development department. I would go one step further and include the conservation commission. Do you realize that most surrounding towns don't have a conservation commissioner while we have a commissioner and a clerk.
We could have sheriff Hudgson deputies all city/town police officers, located within Bristol county. This would give jurisdictional police power to all law enforcement people, who live in the county.
Hopefully, Mr. Cressman will accept Dartmouth's offer, and can then begin to implement those things that worked for Tewksbury for Dartmouth.
Goodness knows, we are long in need of change and a new direction.
To Anonymous 4:45p.m
I was at the Town Hall the other day and found the Conservation door locked. I was told that the clerical position was cut and the Board of Health is now covering the clerical work for commission.
Con com only serves developers. When it comes to citizens, they have a horrible attitude.
Bill - is it true there may be a significant return of funds unspent from FY '09? If so how much are we talking about?
Anonymous 9:59
You'll need to contact SB chairman, King Michaul. He has a gag rule on all SB members. Anonymous sources, have made serious allegations, that one of the board members have committed serious violations of leaking executive session meeting information, to an unknown source on the police department.
yep Joe makes me gag its not just SB members
instead of asking bill go to the fincomm meeting
There are about $3 million dollars in departmental turnbacks. Most of these are one time revenue but some such as savings from health insurance premiums can, I think, now be classified as recurring revenue. The town has enough data to say that the reductions are long term and can reduce the appropriation for that line item. Of course inflation of costs must first be taken into account. Other areas that may be recurring are savings from reorganization in clerical staff.
Non recurring revenue can only be used for capital expenditures and one time expenses. The lion's share of the turnbacks fall into that category.
There were several capital expense items that were not funded in the spring Town Meeting for lack of funds, such as replacement of police cars (about $100k) and boiler upgrades at the schools ($1.2 million if memory serves me). Those items can and should be funded from the money turned back.
Thank you for the Information Bill. I am concerned however that with all the talk of lack of funds, the fights over the inability to fund departments, (Y.A., Board of Health, COnservation, etc.) not to mention the cost for the PAYT program to taxpeyers that we now find ourselves with over $3million in surplus taxes. Should we have known sooner rather than later about the magnitude of this turn back? How can we have any faith in our budget keeping if after a year of hand wringing over insufficient funds we end up with about 10% of my taxes as 'left overs'? I am not pointing fingers at you, the SB or even fincom as you/they are only as good as the numbers you have been given. There has to be some explanation as to how to prevent this in the future. What's the point of an override if that money does not get spent? Why not return the tax dollars to the tax payers, that would be novel.
Several factors went into the number that resulted this year. The reserve fund returned nearly $600K at the end of the year which is unprecedented. The library made changes which have reduced costs short term but will not be sustained. The police department had retirements that resulted in some funds not being expended but those positions will be filled over the next few months. Because of concern that the state may not fund our last Chapter 70 school aid payment of $1 million (actually, they didn't but the funds were obtained through federal stimulus grant), $411K was appropriated by a Special Town Meeting which occurred within the Annual Town Meeting to make sure the town didn't run into a cash flow problem due to the state not providing the school funding. These and the things I mentioned above are the reason for the unspent funds. There was and is no plan to keep the taxpayers paying more or to keep town departments from needed funding. Everyone knew that funds were tight and cut back and pinched pennies. That's what you are seeing
I hear you Bill, I will be looking at some other towns to see the percentage of returned funds in their budgets. It just seems absurd that we went thru so much turmoil last year only to have 10%+ of our tax dollars unspent. We have retirements every year, we supposedly were tracking such things as we were tracking each department's spending month to month and yes there was some swapping herer and there, but the refrain every month was we are on the edge teetering, we muct make more and deeper cuts. Now when all is said and doen it seems that it was only so much talk - $3m in turn backs?! My faith in our budgeting capabilities is being sorely tested, I'm not sure how else to put it.
The battle will be on about how to allocate turnbacks. Will we eliminate some fees for taxpayers or will personnel eat it up? How about those capital improvement needs? I say eliminate some fees for the people footing the bill.
Only recurring revenue could be used to reduce fees if the Select Board and Finance Committee follow their own policies
Dartmouth has not yet fallen into the sea.
Why should Dartmouth have fallen into the sea? We have a $3M life preserver it seems. Thanks for all the fees.
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