News
Council
to dip into undesignated fund
Will bring tax impact to 0%
By Elizabeth Prata
Gray-Councilor Lynn Olson reported at Tuesday's Council
meeting that the expected tax increase for the Fiscal
Year 2004-1005 budget will be 0%.
This does not include two extra warrant items that
will ask the citizens to approve up to $110,000 for
a contracted police officer and $200,000 for a reserve
for a Town Office Center. If either or both of those
are approved at Town Meeting, the tax impact would
be increased, and would no longer be 0%.
"The undesignated fund balance was larger than
benchmarks suggested by the outside Auditor,"
Olson said. The Council will use $800,000 of this
extra money and pay one-time expenses such as:
--$300,000 to repair bridges in town
--approximately 4140,000 to pay off Post office loan
--buy a Public Safety vehicle outright
--put $50,000 to offset taxes
Gray has a history of over-projecting revenues, and
the extra money that comes in as a result of this
over-taxing is placed in the Undesignated Fund Balance.
This year, the Auditor has stated that there is more
than enough in the Fund, and that the Council can
think about setting limits on how much money they
want to carry forward. Olson later reported that this
year so far, "expenses are running 74% instead
of 75%, and that revenues are quite a bit above budget."
Olson is Chair of the Council's Finance Committee.
The Council said that from now on they will adopt
a policy in which no more than two months' worth of
money is in the Undesignated Fund. Additionally, the
Charter-mandated Crisis Fund mandates that there be
one-month of the entire budget, not just municipal
portion, set aside for emergencies.
Olson cautioned that next year may be a different
story, that there may be a "ripple effect."
She continued, "But we feel that this is a favorable
budget to bring to the taxpayers."
