Community Corner
Budget Vote Facts
This is an email going about town and is worthy of posting.
Responsible budget
Mr Lafolette wrote an interesting piece in the Monroe Courier last week. While I welcome differing opinions, I think the newspaper and the townspeople should expect accuracy. He states that the BOE is increasing energy budget by $125,000, this is incorrect. I believe Mr. Lafolette is reading the original proposed budget that had an error that was pointed out by finance and corrected by the BOE. Mr Lafolette seldom believes me so I respectfully ask him to look at the original BOE budget total $53,479,638 then lowered to $53,267,098 then cut $200,000 by BOF and now another $75,000 by the first selectman. Now proposed at $52,992,998. Up only 1.69%.
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Mr LaFolette's second point is that BoE is adding supervisors for over $800,000.
If he attended our workshops he would realize that the BOE had to reclassify teachers to deal with new testing mandates. The teachers received a 2.9% raise and the total number of teaches (re classed and not) is less than 2013-14 which is how they can live with a 1.69% increase despite salaries increasing by more.
His last point is accurate but misguided. Yes the BOF does adjust the grand list.
He raised this point in our public hearing and I explained the answer but maybe he forgot. For those of you not aware seniors can quality for a lowered property tax bill. I would ask Mr. Lafolette where that is listed in the budget? While he's looking I will tell you a little known fact it's not. Since the inception of the program it has never been listed as a line item expense in the budget. I am opposed to the current presentation and will lobby to change it for next budget season. So the process goes like this. The assessor presents the BOF a grand list in February. Between February and June30th additions and subtractions happen to the grand list. The BOF last year did an analysis of the past ten years and found that between the presentation from the assessor and June 30th the grand list dropped an average of .2%. The BOF unanimously agreed to adjust the grand list by that amount. Then the BOF must factor the cost of senior tax relief $515,000 less the state contribution $165,000 plus veterans relief $29,000.
Find out what's happening in Monroewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Once these calculations are done we arrive at a mill rate. Our goal is to hit a collection rate of 98.50%. Last year after all our calculation we hit 98.49% not perfect but pretty good. Anyone who would like confirmation of these numbers feel free to contact our tax collector Manny Cambra.
The point of the story is that Mr Lafolette does not think this budget is lean. I actually don't like that term as it is nebulous. I prefer the term responsible. We could make the budget leaner by cutting our pension contribution. This would make our 2014-15 budget lower but would only increase our costs later and send the bill to our children. While Mr Lafolette might support not increasing our pension costs 22.4% it's the responsible thing to do. We have contractual obligations and we must properly fund those obligations. We are responsibly managing our bonding and paying down $ 4,115,000 of bonded debt. We could certainly slow down our debt pay down and that would make the budget lower but would that make sense to anyone? Our overall goal is to lower our long term costs. While benefits costs already negotiated can't be changed we are addressing our long term costs in all new contracts. Anyone who has heard about our DPW negotiations will realize we are committed to managing long term costs.
The bottom line is simple. The budget is a very conservative, thoughtful, long term approach to managing the finances of the town. It calls for more taxes with a mill rate increase of 2.2%. It is the right amount to fund our present and future obligations and I hope you will join me and vote Tuesday April 22!
Sincerely,
Michael Manjos
Chairman
BOF