http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20130131/NEWS02/701319917
Springfield voters will decide the fate of a $10.3 million town budget, which if passed would represent a 3 percent increase in property taxes.
The Springfield Select Board adopted the 2013-2014 budget Tuesday evening after agreeing with many of the suggestions of the town’s budget advisory group. The budget is up $247,500, and includes $50,000 toward raises for the town’s employees, who are still in negotiations.
But much of the final budget discussion Tuesday night centered on whether to include $50,000 in the town’s capital budget to help fund the Springfield Regional Development Corp. and Springfield On The Move.
The town has funded both organizations for years, and most years has included $30,000 directly in the capital budget for the regional development group and $20,000 for the downtown redevelopment group. The downtown group for a couple of years was listed as a special appropriation.
But Select Board member David Yesman read the town charter again late last week and discovered that the town budget is not the place for such funding requests.
On a 3-2 vote decided by Chairman Kristi Morris, the two groups’ funding requests were stripped from the capital budget. Instead, they will appear as individual articles on the town warning, asking for voter support.
Morris said he didn’t like the “eleventh hour” nature of the change, especially since the two organizations, particularly the development group, had been included directly in the town budget for at least 20 years.
But Morris, noting that “precision” was very important to him in his work, said following the town charter was more important than immediate tradition.
Morris said that he and Town Manager Robert Forguites had consulted with Town Attorney Stephen Ankuda on Monday about the town charter language, and Ankuda advised the board that the two organizations, since they were not town departments, did not belong in the operating budget.
Bob Flint, executive director of the regional development group, suggested that the capital budget was not the same as the operating budget, but that suggestion went nowhere.
Voting to keep the two groups out of the town budget were Morris, Yesman and Select Board member Michael Knoras. Voting to include them in the budget were Select Board members Stephanie Gibson and Peter MacGillivray.
Yesman and Knoras took pains to say they supported both groups and that they would urge townspeople to vote the special appropriation.
Afterward, Flint said he only learned about the town charter provision during the meeting and said he was surprised by the change.
“We appreciate the support by the board,” Flint said, noting that the combined town appropriation of $50,000 toward economic re-development was “less than the cost of one person.”
The budget includes $400,000 capital expenditure toward paving and marks the elimination of the town’s vacant public works director’s job. The budget includes $315,000 toward new equipment in the public works department.
Forguites said that since the retirement of Harry Henderson, the public works director, Jeff Strong, the water and sewer superintendent, had taken over both responsibilities and was doing just fine. Forguites said the two positions had actually been one until recent years.
Requests for additional staffing by both the police and fire departments were rejected by both the budget committee and the Select Board.
Springfield adopts $10.3 million budget
By Susan Smallheer
Staff Writer | January 31,2013
Rutland Herald
SPRINGFIELD —
well let's see a 3% increase in your taxes because of the town budget, an increase in your taxes due to a school budget and an upcoming increase in your water and sewer base amount (which was stated will happen this spring/summer, at the time of the last water rate increase)
ReplyDeleteHey good luck with all that. I can only surmise that the real estate going on the market will increase unfortunately the pricing of that real estate won't since the increase in taxes will drive down any increase in value. Good luck everyone!
The only way to lessen the tax burden on property owners is to bring more businesses to Springfield so what does the the board decide to cut? Economic Development.
DeleteI suspect that spells the end for the paid director at Springfield on the Move. The cutting the funding might make sense if we had a Town Manager who was actually out there doing something to encourage economic development in the Town, but under the current situation it doesn't make a lot of sense since the only way out of the current death spiral is to grow the Town's Grand List. If they are going to do this, then maybe its time to really start looking at all the overlapping non-profits we have accumulated in this Town because the Town government itself doesn't govern.
DeleteThe Board did not cut Economic Development or SOM, they are separate articles on the ballot. They stand a better chance passing there then in the budget, as all special appropriations seem to pass with no issues. Ohh, by the way, those special appropriations, when passed are in addition the the 3 percent increase.
DeleteAnonymous 1:52 PM, you want to lay odds on a special appropriation the size of those two passing?
DeleteJust think the more houses on the market, the more low-rent landlords we can attract that will scoop them up and turn them into more section-8 housing and then let them rot into the ground thereby drawing even more on the resources of the Town...don't believe me....look at the luxurious house the Town now owns on Cottage Ave...
DeleteIt's helpful to remember that for 80% of the nation, wages have not kept up with inflation, especially health care, and their tax load has increased relative to the top 10, 5 and 1 percent. So, those who are making less than $160,000 a year can feel justified about the pain of tax increases.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, both Congress and Montpelier push for a "revenue neutral" approach-- if taxes are going to be raised in one area, they have to be reduced in another. This works really well for people like Mitt Romney, whose army of accountants not only got him a 14% tax load in 2011, but who also managed to park (apparently illegally) $1 million in a 401(k) account.
One example of this revenue neutral approach is the Gov shifting $17 million from Earned Income Credit rebates to low-income working parents and parking it in day care funding. That $17 million represents an average of four and a half weeks of wages for one of those families (who make from nothing to $50,000 a year). To a household in the upper 2.12%, their share of a tax increase to cover that $17 million represents an average of 12 hours of work. So, the people who make this state run right get it in the neck, and the beneficiaries of their work aren't even aware of it.
If we get away from the "revenue neutral" concept, we can get lower property taxes in Springfield as the state and feds provide the money for the infrastructure that we now pay for.
However, that would open up the possibility that the Walton (Wal-Mart) heirs might pay as much tax as the bottom 40% of Americans, which is how much income they have.
Chuck,
Deleteshould we all just go out and kill ourselves ?
So exactly what are you saying Chuck?
DeleteDeck Chair, as an inanimate object you can't kill yourself. In fact you shouldn't even be typing. You have nothing to worry about.
DeleteBasically he is saying the deck is stacked against the working middle class.
DeleteYou may find this interesting Chuck: http://ideas.time.com/2013/01/29/viewpoint-why-the-decline-of-unions-is-your-problem-too/
DeleteAnonymous @ 3:19-- thanks; people ought to read that and think about it. Athelred the Unready: for the last 60 years, the public has been sold a bill of goods about the value of the worker. My father and his co-workers didn't form a union at their workplace because their boss (who lived a block from us) told them if they formed one, they'd get union pay, no more. After working there for 28 years with no benefits, no workman's comp, and no paid holidays, he got too sick to continue and got a job in a unionized shop. He started as a sweeper making more money the first week than he'd been making any week in his last job.
DeleteHe, his co-workers and the general public to this day are duped by the myth of unions as being evil. The result of course has been that while the wage of the workers has gone flat or downhill (cost of living and sales tax increases), the value of the work produced by the average worker per year has risen 387% (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkgZpRDFX2M).
But in the top 20% ($160,000 and up), the higher the income, the lower the productivity increase-- and those at the very top (e.g., just the top 400 households, which averaged $434.3 million in 2010) are way overpaid for their work. They are the ones who should be paying America's school taxes. After all, they are making a little more than the average Springfield property owner.
And what do they use the money for? Not to keep America's infrastructure in good shape for people who have to drive to work or get educated to work or stay healthy to work, but to die with the most toys.
Individual workers by and large do not serve themselves well when they stand alone. One of the biggest weapons an employer has is the employee's reticence about what he/she earns. When union members have a contract, they know what they're getting and they know when they can negotiate for more.
There is no reason why workers should be paid one-four-hundredth of what the CEO makes. Eighty percent of America's workers are in the same position my dad was in. And, oh yeah-- his former boss died a millionaire several times over. Which means he won!
CG and his sewer rats are green with envy over others' success. CG, no one forced your old man to work or live where he did; he chose to. He could have gone anywhere in America to achieve his fame and fortune, but he chose his fate. The fact that he was paid beyond his real worth as a sweeper is the purest example of the economic destruction that the unions have wraught, to include finally nailing the coffin shut on Springfield's machine tool shops. Quit whining about your family's pathetic plight and objecting to the good fortune of others and go out and make something of yourself. And by the way, the fact that America's infrastructure is not kept in good shape is not because the ecomically successful among us don't use OUR MONEY for doing so. It's because the government that you help elect can't put the money that they confiscate in taxes from those who are successful to effective use. You are such a small minded liberal tool...or fool...
DeleteThat's your opinion, Anonymous 12:35. Where's the data to back it up?
Delete"The data" is staring you in the face everyday in the miserable surroundings that are the derelict and destitute town of Springfield, you nitwit! Get over your denial and envy and make something of yourself!
Delete12:35 you are so far off base you must see the newly found quasar. If the unions were the problem then why is the gap of the 2 percent of the 2 percent getting bigger as we speak. The unions are all but gone. So when we get to the point that we were at, at the turn of the century (1900’s). The people will rise again. We will see were your kind stand then :))
DeleteHmmm...for years we heard that the Water and Sewer superintendant couldn't add anything to his or his crew's work load, and that the highway superintendant couldn't add any responsibilities to his or his crew's workload. But now we are fine with that being one and the same position? Either the two departments will learn to work together, OR less and less upkeep of town will happen....
ReplyDeleteconsidering the departments employ less people than they did 5 yrs ago, i guess the work load is more
DeleteDon't see why they shouldn't be under a single public works department.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that both the Town and School budgets are dead on arrival this year. They might as well be planning what the revised budget will look like on the revote. New Supt. will get baptism with fire.
ReplyDelete2 million in potential tax revenue if the Biomass facility is built, talk about adding to the grand list. But noooo, can't have that. So we will all continue to complain about tax increases to the residential property owner, because all the nymby's don't want businesses to offset the tax burden on the homeowner.
ReplyDeleteyou should be forced to think harder
DeleteCan anyone tell me what has gone down in cost the past year? The cost of providing town services doesn't go down just because you wish it. Electricity is up, fuel both heating and diesel is up, maintenance of vehicles up. Instead of complaining, I guess you should have been at the budget hearings and stated exactly which services you no longer want. Because that is the only place left to cut. Services
ReplyDeletecould start with the bare road policy
DeleteThere is no bare road policy...are you high?
DeleteMy guess would be that Yesman really intended for the two economic development items to result in a cut, otherwise why would he have blindsided them at the meeting.
DeleteThe price of labor has not gone up.
Delete$10.3 Million POOF!
ReplyDeleteWhat's everybody so upset about. SRDC has announced the renaming of Precision Park and a new sign to go along with it. Can you say ECONOMIC BOOM TOWN? Now shut up, pay your taxes like the good serfs you are, and let our illustrious leaders continue to claim success for their miserable failures.
ReplyDeleteThe fish rots from the head. Out with Forguites. Out with Perotti. Out with the current boards. Hire some bright, fresh, highly motivated new blood and set them loose to kick some tail and clean house.
The endless cycle of misery in Springfield will never cease without gutting the system of the INEPTOCRATS that have run the town into the ditch and left it there for years.
well said
Delete"ineptocrats"
Delete