Council
to develop fiscal policy Will help them in budget developent
By
Elizabeth Prata
Gray--How can a municipality develop a budget without
a basic fiscal policy that underpins it? the Gray
Town Council wondered Monday night. At their regular
workshop meeting in Stimson Hall, they discussed creating
a fiscal policy, setting their priorities for the
work they want to accomplish, and asked the Manager
to provide them with financial materials related to
the Tax Cap presentation held last October. All this
is in preparation for beginning the municipal budget
development season.
Last year, there loomed a tax cap on the State ballot,
and the specter of the Cap threw municipalities into
a tizzy of developing presentations to show how a
town or city would cope with the drastic cuts if the
tax cap passed.
Gray was no different, and a presentation was given
to the Council indicating how and where the Manager
would cut the budget to meet a potential voter-approved
mandate. The Cap did not pass, but a year later, this
current Council did not forget that last year's near-miss
meant to them that taxpayers were fed up with rising
taxes and want better value for their tax money. The
Council asked Manager Mitchell A. Berkowitz to dig
out that information so they may review it as they
develop the Town's budget. They also asked for the
recently conduced official annual Town Audit and said
that they will use these documents to help them as
they begin creating their fiscal policy statement.
In the past, the typical budget-development process
has been for the Council to meet with Department heads
in a day-long Saturday session at the beginning of
budget creation. The Departments come to the Council
with their needs and wants, explain the basis for
each, the Council asks questions, and then the Council
springs forward in budget development using the collection
of each Department's presented proposal as the starting
point.
This Council may not want to meet in a Super Saturday
session. As Vice-Chair Andy Upham said, "We do
not meet with or work with staff at any other time
of the year," and the Council said they may want
to first develop their own basis and then hand that
to the Manager for his Departments to use as the Council's
springboard.
Additionally, the Council will use the Audit and the
Tax Cap information as foundation documents in a fiscal
policy that will drive the budget. They said that
they want to extrapolate the previous tax-savings
information generated under the tax cap crunch, bring
it forward, and take another look at it. This information
may become the Council's core statement, from which
fiscal decisions will flow. "This will demonstrate
that the taxpayers' money is being used wisely,"
said Mr. Upham.
The Council also said Monday night that they have
concerns about the quantity of land and buildings
that the Town owns. After rating their fiscal policy
as a top priority, their next most important objective
under fiscal matters will be to sort through the Capital
Improvement (or Investment) Plan (CIP). The CIP is
a schedule of all assets that the Town owns, from
buildings and land to vehicles and infrastructure,
and which sets a schedule for maintenance of each
and when to purchase new.
If the pending court case deems so, the Town Council
may become Trustees of the Pennell Trust, which contains
5 acres of land and two buildings in the Village.
This property would be added to the CIP and would
require much money to fix up. The Council also asked
for a list of tax-acquired properties, of which the
town owns about 25.
Currently, the Town owns an empty former Post Office
adjacent to Town Office. Three years ago the taxpayers
approved the purchase for use as an extended Town
Office. Despite the claims of immediate need, that
initiative never came about and the building has remained
empty with no capital improvements or maintenance
completed.
Now that the building has remained unused for so long,
the lot has become automatically adjoined to Town
office as a non-conforming lot. The Council said that
the empty building issue should be settled and the
Town should also dispense with many of the tax-acquired
properties as they begin scrutinizing the CIP. As
Chair Gary Foster said, "We are not land barons."
