Your money, your government, you should know about it. You can find this information under MA division local service, then gateway application, login, then free cash, then cities & towns free cash.
Templeton Net free cash:
July 1, 2018 = $1,572,732.00
July 1, 2019 = $1,455,158.00
July 1, 2020 = $1,327,538.00
Templeton real estate receivables:
July 1, 2018 = $281,406.00
July 1, 2019 = $275,150.00
July 1, 2020 = 369,953.00
Templeton gross free cash:
July 1, 2018 = $1,848,843.00
July 1, 2019 = $1,735,289.00
July 1, 2020 = $1,653,989.00
So, gross free cash has been going down, which means net free cash drops while uncollected real estate taxes are on increase. Why keep budgeting off dollars you have financial history showing you will not have all of those dollars to spend. Perhaps change policy of letting one years unspent free cash roll into the next year and hang onto it for reserve. Doing this would give a clearer picture, dollar wise, on how the town is really doing. Which would be better for the residents so they could see clearer hoy they are doing, moneywise.
Mr. Bennett,
ReplyDeleteI have a question for you regarding the above posted information.
Could you please include the reason that the Gross minus Receivables does not equal Net.
July 1, 2018 $1,848,843-$281,406 = $1,567,437 is off by -5,295
July 1, 2019 $1,735,289 - $275,150 = $1,460,139 is off by -4,981
July 1 2020 $1,653,989 - $369,953 = $1,284,036 is off by -43,502
July 1, 2018 for example; the receivables are:
ReplyDeletepersonal property tax of $9,937.00 +
real estate tax of $281,406.00 +
additional items = $113,125 +
deferred revenue (credit balance, add on) = $128,358.00 =
net free cash of $1,572,732.00.
Awesome, thank you very much. Without needing all the detail I assume the other years follow a similar pattern. Just so nobody is looking for missing funds.
ReplyDeleteI truly see your above point and concur.
It makes sense that the value of the property we are not collecting taxes on will continually increase calling for more and more taxes that we do not collect as a %.
We really should only be basing our expenditures off of 96-97% of our total real estate tax base.
This would fall right in line with budgeting for capital, roads upfront rather than the present free cash fallacy route. Very little "free cash" would exist if we budgeted for capital, roadwork upfront rather than using excess appropriations year after year