by Kieron Kramer
There are two ways to bring a tax levy down from a Preliminary Budget. One is to go over the budget, line by line, snipping fat here and there. The other way is to appropriate some revenue from the reserve fund. Grafton Town Supervisor Frank Higgins chose the latter and made a resolution at the end of the Special Meeting on Monday, October 27, to move $12,500 from the reserve fund into the General Fund Unexpended Balance. [private]This reduced the amount to be raised by taxes in 2015 to $185,310. It had been $197,810. Actual taxes from 2014 totaled $184,250 so the 2015 Grafton budget will require only $1,060 more in taxes this year over last in the General Fund or a .57% tax levy increase in that fund. When combined with the $508,486 to be raised by taxes for the Highway Fund, the tax levy increase for those two funds amounts to a 1.56% tax levy increase, or a $10,640 increase in taxes over last year.
The Grafton Fire District 2015 budget shows a $93,265 amount to be raised by taxes, or a 1.4% increase over 2014.
Public Hearing
A public hearing on Grafton’s preliminary budget was held before the special meeting, starting at 7 pm. At that point the tax levy had not been reduced yet so the increase stood at 3.39%. The most moving comment was made by Connie Alderman who said that her Social Security income was only increasing by 1.5%. Several others commented that they hadn’t received a wage increase in years or had had their hours cut back at work.
Doug La Rocque said, “The Town has to take a real hard look at the budget; it’s a lot more money out of people’s pockets.” This is especially true for the elderly on fixed incomes who will have less to spend on food, heat, medicine and gasoline when their money goes for taxes.
La Rocque was asked by Board Member Barb Messenger to make suggestions about the budget lines, and he obliged, singling out the $2,100 increase in the park contractual expenses for purchasing a mower. La Rocque said that the park is only one acre. He suggested that the library contractual expense increase of $2,500 was too much. He also thought that the Justice’s contractual expense could be pared.
The preliminary budget contained an increase in the buildings contractual expense of $1,500 and a $2,000 increase in the unallocated insurance line. But the most onerous expense increase for 2015 is the $10,000 increase for hospital and medical insurance. A $5,000 increase in revenues for garbage removal and refuse charges helps to balance the budget. Almost all the budget lines, other than those mentioned here, were the same as or close to the 2014 levels.
Higgins defended the budget figures saying that the four heads (Board members) had carefully considered the figures. He had reasonable explanations for all the figures and said that La Rocque was “nickel and diming” the budget. Of course we all know that nickels and dimes add up to dollars at some point.
Spooky
The public hearing was immediately followed by the Special Meeting. It didn’t get very far before there was an argument between Messenger and Deputy Town Clerk Cathy Goyer. Messenger wants the bill vouchers numbered before they are signed by Board members so they can keep track of which bills are being signed. Goyer numbers them after they are signed because the numbering indicates to her that the bill is ready to be voted on. Goyer said she would not change her procedure. The argument was too spooky, too close to Halloween, to recount here.
The need for another budget meeting was averted when Board Member Rick Ungaro prevailed upon the Supervisor to show him and Board Member Mike Crandall the resolution introduced near the end of the meeting that moved $12,500 out of the reserve fund into the general fund before voting on it. After Barb Messenger went into the office to make copies of Higgins’ resolution and after Ungaro and Crandall were able to look at it, the Board voted unanimously to adopt the resolution which moves $12,500 from the reserve fund into the general fund. Why these Board members weren’t shown the resolution before the meeting is anybody’s guess.[/private]