Guest Editorial

Studying the Gray Budget
Commentary by Janet Neal

Trying to study the Gray Town budget proposal is not typically on people's lists of "fun things to do." It's not really on mine either, but I have taken the plunge and tried to wade through the presentation in hopes of having a good grasp of it before Town Meeting rolls around. As I went through, I put a few sticky notes here and there, where something seemed unclear or confusing, or inconsistent, or misleading.

I admit it; I am a bit of a stickler for accuracy and clarity. We are, after all, talking about a multi-million dollar proposal that each of us will be paying for. We should demand accuracy in numbers, of course, but also accuracy and precision in the use of language.

Overall, the assemblage of budget data is good. Putting together something that complex is no small task, and I for one can certainly appreciate all the time and effort many individuals have invested in it. But there are a couple spots that I would like to comment on.

On the very first page, the all-important cover page, there is a budget "Overview." One might suppose that an 'overview' would highlight the major facts about the budget. But, nowhere on this overview page does it say what the budget total is, or how much it is going up, or what the percentage increase is. One would think that that is the first thing a citizen would want to see. But it's not on the cover page, and it's not in the other 5 pages of charts, graphs, and presentations.

You have to go to page 12 of the detailed budget computer printout in order to find it. It's the last line and it says this:
Current year budget: $ 4,650,563
Proposed for 05/06: $ 4,998,716
That is an increase of $ 348,153, up 7.5%.

While the cover page neglects to give the above information, it does make a couple other mathematical assertions regarding revenue and expenditures. Let's look at just one of them for now. "Town Revenue estimate up 12.4%."

This statement, and its accompanying table, says that revenue, meaning revenue other than property taxes, is projected to be up 12.4% next year. That would be good news because it means that the property tax burden will be lessened. If there is more "other revenue" that is not from property taxes, then there does not need to be as much property tax collected. The statement isn't false, it's just not really complete.

The Manager and Council do indeed project more revenue from excise taxes, more interest on the town's savings, and more money collected for services. But the single biggest piece of the increase in "revenue" is not really new revenue at all. It is coming from reserve accounts and from the Undesignated Fund Balance (UFB - our extra cash). In other words, it's from property taxes we already paid them. It's not really "other, non-property tax revenue."

I have no problem using reserves and UFB appropriately to pay for projects and lessen the demand for new property taxes. I just have a problem calling them "increases in revenue" as though they are new money this year, or coming from outside sources, and not from previous property taxes.

If we don't include reserves and UFB as "revenue," then the truly non-property tax income projections are up by 7.6%, not 12.4%. That's still a good thing. Town officials can probably make some argument that it's supposed to be calculated their way, but it just doesn't seem right to me to celebrate a big increase in non-property tax "revenue" when the biggest piece of it actually was property tax revenue in a prior year.

Next week I will examine the Town's front page assertion "Gross expenditures, all groups including education, down 1.8%".

Janet Neal was formerly a member of the SAD 15 Board of Directors, Chair of the SAD 15 School Board Finance committee, Secretary of the Gray Charter Commission, and a mathematician by degree and a business owner by trade.