Selectmen are elected to work for you and to look out for you.
Seems odd they handout almost 100 thousand dollars of your money for bonuses for town employees for doing their jobs while some residents lost jobs, had hours reduced and had small businesses still trying to get back to where they were. Then the selectmen put $147,500.00 in town savings. Of interest is only 45 thousand into capital stabilization and 45 thousand into infrastructure stabilization. Selectmen reward town employees for doing their job but shortchange residents again. Putting maximum money aside for roads, drainage, sidewalks, etc. seems to be an afterthought of selectmen. Town financial management policy, which selectmen often ignore, states Local Funding – The first source of capital investment shall be the Capital Stabilization Fund. So, per the FMP, items such as new police cruisers, which helps reduce wasting money on costly repairs to old cruisers, should be paid for by the capital stabilization fund. Also, per a town meeting vote and presentation by the selectmen back in 2018, a funding source for capital is / was supposed to be meals tax, which again, selectmen ignore town meeting vote and their own presentation to town meeting. Time for town meeting to override selectmen again. How long would have 10 Pleasant Street building been standing if town meeting had followed selectmen vote on $2500.00 deposit into the demolition revolving fund? Selectmen were not thinking of residents then and they are not thinking of residents now. People need to show up to town meeting and use their authority to increase funding into the accounts that benefit residents. How long are people going to put up with a flooded road because selectmen do not seem to place much importance on it? Please show up to vote.
Just as an example of how "out of touch" with reality our Selectboard is regarding funding.
ReplyDeleteArticle 20 places $45,000 from Certified free cash in the "Infrastructure Stabilization Account" and even though Article 13 of the Town Warrant doesn't say it specifically if you look at "uses of free cash" is shows $65,000 being deducted from Infrastructure Stabilization Account for Article 13.
So we are using almost 50% more than we are adding to the Infrastructure Account in the year we add it. Thats right, we are not adding a dime to infrastructure Stabilization. We are deducting $20,000
We are adding $45,000 to Capital Stabilization Account which is about enough for 3/4 of a police cruiser.
Just to add another point since Jeff brought it up. The amount of money we put into the Capital Stabilization Account is about 58% of the total taken in from the meals tax.
Mike and Adam say they "executing more efficiently". I'm going to use the none horsecrap phrasing of "WE ARE GOING BROKE" and our Selectboard votes "yes" and fully supports this course.
To be transparent, article 13 states "to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate, borrow or transfer the sum of $65,000.00 to be spent under the direction of the select board." . . .. so exactly where is that money to come from? A simple question which requires a simple answer; raise and appropriate means from taxes as in tax rate, borrow would be debt exclusion, transfer means from some other account, so which is it? Do the selectmen know the answer and why should town meeting give selectmen such broad authority? Also, one thing town meeting should do is amend article to remove words "or to take any other action related thereto." That is a catch all item that allows selectmen and TA to do even more things without transparency, sort of like a blank check.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I believe town meeting should amend the article further by inserting the phrase of "transfer a sum of not more than $65,000.00 to be spent under direction of selectmen." Town meeting needs to hold the reins of the selectmen tight these days.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to see the particular Parcels they plan to get appraised. I'll have to go an check, but haven't we done this or others that started 3-4 years ago...........I seem to remember voting on this very thing "appraisals on royalston road"...............
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