Jeff Bennett
Concerning the town budget, all one has to remember is the Templeton annual town meeting of May 2019; resident asks if the statement that fy20 budget is one million more than last years is true, a selectman stood before town meeting and stated "no, it is not true" Well, it is a simple math problem and there is a tctv video out there of that meeting. May 2019 article 26 / On a motion duly made and seconded the town voted to appropriate the sum of Nine Million Six
Hundred Ninety Thousand Two Hundred Seventy Four Dollars and no cents ($9,690,274.00) for the operations of General Government for Fiscal Year 2020. Now at town meeting May 2018, article 21 On a motion duly made and seconded the Town voted to appropriate the sum of Eight Million, Two Hundred Twenty Thousand, Two Hundred Ninety Eight Dollars and no cents ($8,220,298.00) for the operations of General Government for Fiscal Year 2019, and article 24 On a motion duly made and seconded the Town voted to raise and appropriate the sum of Four Hundred Seventy Thousand Two Hundred Forty Six Dollars and No Cents, ($470,246.00), for supplemental appropriations to the FY 2019 Operating Budget for the following departments: So $8,220,298.00 + $470,246.00 = an increase of $999,730.00, say one million dollar increase (what is $270.00 among friends) if they will lie about that, imagine what they can try with fuzzy math. Pass on budget and tell selectmen bring back a better budget, town meeting can do that. Either have a special town meeting later in June or recess town meeting until admin can bring back a better budget or pass it and hope for best (more free cash to support this so called balanced budget, town meeting call)
The thing everyone has to remember is that whatever budget the TA or Selectboard gives you it does NOT cover the entire years budget and they know it.
ReplyDeleteOne shining example is the 2% missing for our actual Snow and Ice Budget.
Notice no actual Capital within the budget. It's all free cash/leases
In the FY24 budget we've pushed back a regular scheduled replacement of our police cruisers to the FTM and free cash from next year. ( spending next years money on this years capital)
They've done another slick move like the $470k in 2019 and lied about this one to..............
When they removed the Ambulance from being funded from within the General Fund budget they did another massive increase to Fire, by not reducing the allotments between fire and Ems.
The average taxpayer would not realize they are being played for fools. I am thinking the average taxpayer thinks they can trust what they are being told. Sorry for the reality treatment, but they are wrong. Another way to look at this is kind of embarrassing. It could be some of our elected officials don't know the difference! No different than when they sit down for a meeting and shuffle through the paperwork because they are totally unprepared. The bottom line is, Templeton cannot rely on Selectman any longer. Our government is too large for the average person to understand. We need an experienced Town Manager.
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