But we don't have to be helpless. We let the Board of Finance know how we felt at the Budget Town Meeting last week. We can come to the Board of Finance meeting this evening at 7:00 pm, at Town Hall (upstairs), and let them know again. And you can sign the northhaveninfo.org petition, and let them know (you can even make your own comments). You can sign the petition until 6 pm this evening. Please send the website address to your friends, so that we can get as many people as possible telling the Board of Finance not to touch the education budget.
Here is Selectwoman Janet McCarty's press release on the town's rejection of the budget. She is sending the same message.
I want to be clear about this: The overwhelming defeat of the proposed budget sends a unmistakable message to Town Hall: the people of North Haven do NOT approve of your ineffective budgeting process, unrealistic budget numbers, and your foolish decision to keep raises for alleged felons in this year’s budget.
These results should NOT be interpreted by the Board of Finance as a vote to cut the education budget. Folks who spoke at the budget hearing, those who wrote letters to the local papers, and those who called/wrote/emailed me did not vote NO because they think our kids are getting too much from our schools. In fact, they believe that our education system has been seriously weakened as a result of the cuts in funding approved by Town Hall over the last few years.
The NO vote is not a YES vote to the Board of Finance to conduct business as usual. It is a YES vote for efficient, effective and honest budgeting. I certainly hope that the Board of Finance gets the right message.
8 comments:
My name is Joachim Schnabel, I am a thirty-two year resident of North Haven. I am not a member of a political party, and I voted against the budget, both as a protest and because of the large increase. I see both sides to blame on the budget issue.
The democrats need to be sent back to math class on the revaluation issue. Their citation of the average homeowner’s savings is meaningless in a one-tailed distribution that has the median significantly less than the mean. Deferral is a give-away to the wealthy homeowners. For every major home with bigger than average savings, there are several smaller homes with savings, if any, below average. Secondly, significant increases in the budget are sure to happen due to the generous pensions promised and inflation. During the phase-in these increases fall disproportionately on the smaller home-owner, even more of a give-away to the wealthy. This would be even worse if the democrats were in power due to their well-known tax-and-spend propensity (look around the state’s mill rates for proof).
The republicans correctly bear a big part of the blame. They hide the numbers that should be available to the public through a mix of incompetence, corruption, and just plain desire to duck the issues. The numbers on revaluation should be available, the savings, or not, by property value classes, based on different possible schedules of budget increases. Silence on this issue just takes advantage of the math error cited above in favor of wealthy homeowners. Also we should have actuarial numbers available on the pension cost burden going forward, along with any funding or prepayment offsets or offset possibilities. The administration should be proponents of a long-term budget plan that could be debated. Instead we just get year-to-year pay-as-we-go budgets with marginal debate.
Sadly, all this argument hides what is still a very efficient town with a low tax burden. We people realize that the incompetence, corruption, and obfuscation by the republicans could easily cause a budget collapse such as we see in many area towns, and it makes us nervous. We are amazed that they have given the democrats the uncharacteristic opportunity to be seen as the fiscally prudent alternative by default.
This has been building for a long time. Budget referenda have become a frequent outlet for protest since the meaning of the budgets has not been made clear by the town.
It starts with education. We know that the best education systems in the country have a per-pupil cost much less than North Haven, so quality cannot be the issue. Yet we are constantly insulted by threats of teacher and program cuts that would damage quality. Be honest, we are increasingly paying for unions, pensions, and state mandates. And there is the standard of living that must be paid for in North Haven to attract teachers to this high cost area. Show us these numbers. The rest of the budget has similar issues.
As a resident and taxpayer, I want the parties, especially the incumbents who should be proponents, to show us the numbers in real context, rather than threats. Unless that happens I will vote against the proposed budgets and will urge others to do the same.
Mr. Schnabel's comment is just what we need in North Haven: intelligent, knowledgeable, and nonpartisan consideration of the situation our town government is in.
Most people will find something to disagree with in what Mr. Schnabel says, but that's one of the things that's great about his comment: it's not intended to please, but to analyze.
Thank you, Mr. Schnabel, and please continue to share your thoughts with the town here on the blog and at public meetings.
I do wish some of the posters would tell them what to cut. Many people say dont cut education, but what is there to cut on the town sides? Many of the budget lines are extremely underfunded. I believe that the cost of the salaries of education administration is extreme. Cut their salaries! Leave town services alone! When you dont have a town service is when you will question your motives here.
Leave the Town side of the budget as it is.
Only when we can see the BOE budget with each line item can we really determine how to cut the BOE side.
Every year the Town tries very hard to hold expense, and even cut them. But the Education side is always increased every year, with threats if not approved.
Anonymous has a good point. There are problems, complaints, and solutions.
As a technology person, with little free time, I love what the internet can do for us.
Why don't we ask the Town to put the budget online for our patient and thoughtful review before the next referendum.
I can not make an intelligent decision, an informed suggestion, or talk about concerns with my neighbors when handed a ream of paper at the door of the HS auditorium.
For the most part, with a few known exceptions, we are all decent hard-working people who desire the best for our children.
But, I also love this town and would really like to live out my retirement here; which does not look plausable given the current situation and theology.
I think we are at a crossroads that needs leadership, which I don't see from either party.
Do you really want to know where to cut the budget on the Town side? Have you looked at the actual Town Budget? Here are some examples: Contingent Fund up from 400,000. to 1,000,000. - for what? Inland Marine Insurance: Actual $0 Budgeted 0 $12,500. Overtime Accts. - all non-emergency personnel overtime should be frozen. The Actual OT accounts for Tax Collector, Engineering and Public Works were $0 yet each department is allocated OT in the Budget. Community Svcs. OT is budgeted for $11,000. vs. actual $8,130. which at this point is suspect. Actual Expenses for Econ. Dev. Dept. is 738. but is budgeted for 6,850. Under Legal, Actual amount of $0 spent on Collection of Back Taxes and Collection of Back Sewer Assessments but the Budget calls for $8,000. and $1,000. respectively. I could go on and on but the Budget is 111 pages long. When you consider just these FEW examples, how can you not feel duped? How can you defend the Town side of this Budget? Most of the Education expenses are State mandated or negotiated with unions. The cuts DIRECTLY affect the students-sports, arts, languages, bus monitors, Creative Learning Program-you're cutting from the town residents who can't vote. If the best defense is a good offense the the Education budget is an easy target. I suggest you look closer at the Town side-there is a ton of waste and padding. It just doesn't make sense in the real world.
RedCisc-
Our first accomplishment this spring was to get the town to post the budget on-line. You can access it at the town website or at the top of the northhaveninfo.org website, which is associated with this blog.
However, I hope they put the next budget proposal up on-line faster than the last proposal, that is, the one we voted on.
Wow, looking over the proposed budget with years of budgeting experience, I don't see too many cuts that would result in serious savings. Most of the reducible line items (based on description) seem to be small change. It looks like we as a town have to make some serious decisions as to what is important to us. Obviously, the education of our children has already rung clear. The pool and the library seem to rank very high in our desires. What next? Can we eliminate leaf removal? I remember this program was instituted to reduce arson during leaf season. The collections are now very late and often done by the snowplow. I was in a similar situation once in business and I learned the sad lesson that after trimming any and all "fat" or excess unfortunately the "lion's share" of savings is in personnel: raises, benefits, unfilled positions, and in the end lay-offs.
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