Hey folks, this debate on the town budget and property tax rate has spurred me to register here and join the conversation, as my schedule does not permit me to attend meatspace meetings at this time.
Let me say first off that my fiance and I, as well as every friend and neighbor in town that I’ve talked to about the issue, voted and/or reads the budget rejection not as merely a repudiation of the police and fire project, but rather as an outcry against the exhorbitantly high tax rate in Brattleboro in general. There seems to be some debate on whether the rejection of the vote was asking for a scalpel to excise the police and fire project or a wider issue.
For my part (and almost universally amongst those I speak to) it was a widespread general repudiation of the town’s budget. Cuts need to be made. I am generally supportive of high rates of taxation matched by strong services, but Brattleboro has clearly not excercised fiscal discipline to attain the best bang for the buck and is very wasteful, IMO. We simply cannot afford higher taxes, the well is dry and it is time for the town government to learn to do more with less, as it has been asking Brattleboro residents to do, more and more, for years.
A zero increase is a good starting point, and while I for one would like to see the tax rate creep back towards something appropriate for the economic realities of our town, if we can hold a level tax rate, we’ve at least stopped the bleeding.
I’d therefore like to draw attention and get some information on several line items in the town budget that seem odd to me, and may be appropriate for targetted cuts, perhaps alleviating the usual scare tactic of cutting popular services such as the library and rec dept.
1 – The finance department spends ~$30,000 for “computer system” in addition to maintenance and etc. Given how small of a a department the finance dept. is in the scheme of things, where is this money going?
2- We spend $100,000 for the town attorney, is this a flat rate retainer? Are we getting $100k worth of services for this amount? (400 hours a year at lawyer hourly rates?)
3- For that matter, having spent over half a million dollars on the design of buildings that we cannot afford, have we really gotten our money’s worth there? The going rate for local architects and engineers is $100 an hour. Have 5,000+ hours of work really gone into these plans? If not, why are we paying such exhorbitant fees?
4- The town clerk spends ~$18,000 on computer land records. What does this entail?
5 – There is an additional line item under “general services” for $30,000/yr in computer equipment maintenance. This is in *addition* to several departments having a line item for computer equipment. Is a town of our size buying 30 computers a year or something? Where is this money going and is it being spent wisely, or are we being gouged needlessly.
6 – The “professional services” line item under “General Services” has gone up significantly in recent years from $4,500 to $18,500. Who are we hiring and for what?
7 – The planning department now hires a zoning consultatnt at $25,00-30,000/yr whereas a few years ago this expense did not exist. Again, does this money need to be spent? Are we getting good bang for our buck?
8 – For several years we have spent ~$200,000 and will spend $160,000/yr on street lights. We do not have terribly many streetlights in this town so I have to ask, how on earth are we spending 160-200k every year on these lights? I have trouble beleiving that they cost *that* much on an annual basis to install and operate. Seems to me a lack of oversight and fiscal discipline led to us getting gouged again.
9 – The library also spends an additional $15,000 on yet more computer maintanence, in addition to another nearly $5,000 in computer supplies. This town sure spends a lot on computers….
10 – The public works department head makes $41,000/yr in salary. This is compared to most other department heads making in the 60’s, with some of the administrative-only departments clearing $70k. Is this disparity due to expected overtime? Can our town really be approaching 80k and 90k for a salary for a town employee plus benefits? My knee-jerk is to shave off those at the top end and show some love to those at the lower end.
11 – What is the $43,000 clerical line item under public works? Are we breaking this out of staff compensation for any particular reason?
12- The rec &parks dept. also has a large ~$30,000 line item for clerical expenses. I contracted with Rec & Parks a few years back in the Gibson Aiken building as an activities instructor and if things are still even half as shoddy and poorly run as it was back then, I certainly don’t think we are getting our money’s worth. I don’t think I got paid on time or the correct amount even once in all the years I worked with them. It seemed extremely poorly run.
13 – Rec and Parks also has nearly $10,000 in phone costs for a very small number of staff.
14 – What does BaBB do to merit $78,000 per year?
15- Lastly, I heard at this last RTM we voted to spend $50,000 for an energy audit on town buildings. This seems like another ripe opportunity for us to be gouged. I consider myself fairly handy, and I have to tell you, it doesn’t cost $50,000 to have someone come in and tell you that your uninsulated brick walls could use some spray foam (Which I’m sure the consultant will be happy to charge top dollar for) here and there or that these ancient windows are leaky and double-panes would be better. This is an absolute waste of money, not in the sense that investing in energy-saving measures is wasteful, but rather we are massively overpaying for things that are absolute common sense, and do not require such expenses to make progress on.
Thank you to anyone who got through that massive post.
If my math is correct, the line items I am questioning amount to over $600,000. Theres your new police and fire project right there, or even if we can take a 25% chunk out of these line items, thats $150,000 towards the amount needed to hold property taxes steady.
I think that these line items bear discussion and explanation.
This was really interesting
This was really interesting to read. Some of the expenditures make more sense than others – for instance, the library has a bank of public computers which are used by hundreds of people every year. It makes sense that they would have higher than average computer maintenance and supply costs. Things like the extremely high fees paid to the town attorney and for street light maintenance- among many other line items you pointed out-seems excessive and not particularly well spent. In my neighborhood there are barely any street lights – I often carry a flashlight with me if I’m going out at night because the lighting is so inadequate. I imagine other areas are the same. Seems like a lot of money for not very good lighting. I wonder if enough attention and due diligence is put forth when the town is looking for and accepting bids for services? Are we really getting the best prices or are we just continuing to go with the same contractors all the time simply because the town has used them before? If no affordable bids come in do we just accept the “best of the worst” or do we keep looking? I don’t know. But it seems like we should all start paying more attention to what the town is spending money on and if there is a better way to do it.
agreement
I agree that the library computers make the most sense out of the others that I listed. While still on the high side in terms of their expense, a library full of public computers in addition to staff systems at least stands to reason. It is still odd though, that there are so many redundant line items for computer maintenance in so many different parts of the town budget.
I’ve built computers as a hobby for myself and friends for a bunch of years now. $30,000 buys you 15 top of the line fully decked out gaming computers with bells and whistles these days. Office computers shouldn’t be exceeding $1,000 each in terms of hardware and operating system. So if a department of 5 people buys 2 new computers a year, that should be $2,000-$3,000 at most. I’m sure specific software adds a good chunk, but tens of thousands? No. Even adding in things like office printers/copiers and such, which are notoriously expensive to purchase and operate (and unreliable), cannot IMO reasonably approach the figures in the budget.
I actually thought the street light expense referred to the traffic lights, not just sidewalk/road illumination. Perhaps its both, which would make a bit more sense, but still, it seems out of proportion and thus raises a red flag for me.
Streetlights and computers
Regarding the budget item for streetlights – I have absolutely nothing to do with the running of the town and can not state the reasons for such costs, however I would point out that the town has been undergoing a complete changeover in its streetlights. The new lights reduce glare and light pollution, and are supposed to be more economical to run with a significant cost savings to accrue over the next several years. This may be part of the cost of the changeover.
Also, regarding computer expense – do we know if the figure includes things like high speed internet services? The library has recently undergone a change in its system which allows the linking of libraries around the state. Lectures and discussions have already been held via streaming video where the speaker, and some audience members, have been in other parts of the state. Also, many of the computers (town and library)have various word processors, spreadsheets, antivirus programs & etc. These require purchase as well as licensing fees which are based on the number of computers using a specific program. Such programs change constantly and are obsolete within a few years. Some of the expenses may be related to commitments made by previous Selectboards to not only modernize what I have heard was an antiquated computer system that had not kept pace with rapid tech advances, but to plan for the future.
I’m not trying to be an apologist for the budget, just taking a couple of guesses at parts of the costs.
software
I am sure that software adds at least a few hundred dollars per machine for the basics and I’m sure certain specialized software is extremely expensive. I’m also not sure how the town’s internet connection is structured but I still maintain that I cannot fathom the purchase of enough computers and software to burn up around $100k *every* year in a town our size.
*IF* the town *is* burning up that amount of money on software I have to ask again, how necessary is it to spend such sums? Are there alternatives?
good start
What I like best about this is that it urges rethinking the way a lot of routine business is done, & questions exactly what is being provided for money spent – how many hours, really, etc.
Are there ways to avoid paying rates that are standard in wealthier areas? The going rate for architects & other professionals in, say, Connecticut, is more than the local economy can afford. Several years ago, cgrotke & others tried to volunteer services & labor for a town project (donut park). The offer was firmly rebuffed. Time for the town to re-think that approach, no? I’m not impressed by suggestions to beg for cash donations or ask people to work for less, but I think quite a few folks would be willing to donate time & expertise to community projects.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to produce this list of budget questions.
That's an interesting
That’s an interesting concept. I’m sure one can find all kinds of ways to cut, but with every cut there could very well be a decrease in services.
But, as long as we’re talking about saving money, look at these data:
There are currently 10 principals in the district all of whom make around 100K. Then there are also well paid assistant principals. And, what do we get for those bucks? Around 20% of students entering BUHS drop out before graduation. Of those who graduate about 1/3 are functionally illiterate. Just sayin’
Bob Fagelson
Looking over the budget?
Where can I view a complete version of the budget? What document did you use to write the above article? I’ve tried looking on the town website to no avail…
link
http://www.brattleboro.org/vertical/Sites/%7BFABA8FB3-EBD9-4E2C-91F9-C74DE6CECDFD%7D/uploads/FY15GENERALFUNDREJECTEDBUDGET.pdf
Computer costs...
Are these line items strictly capital costs, or do they include IT services? A lot of what you’re describing here looks like paying people to solve problems. When you talk about building yourself a $1000 computer, how much did you value your time? If you counted it as “free,” that might be part of the problem. Computers aren’t like cars, where you just do an oil change every so often and they basically just work. They have ongoing security issues that must be dealt with, people have questions about how to use them that must be answered, etc.
The town clerk’s computer land records system is very useful. You should check it out. I suspect that costs there amount to annual licensing fees and the cost of keeping secure backups. That line item doesn’t sound at all surprising to me.
The problem with a high-level analysis like this is that you simply haven’t given us enough information to evaluate whether there’s a problem or not. It would be more useful to go over these items one at a time and spend the time to actually understand what the money is paying for. It may be that there is waste here, but just looking at line items and saying “that seems high” isn’t going to do it.
The break down of town
The break down of town expenditures that was posted here is, I imagine, supposed to provide a ‘first look’ at departments where perhaps the spending is out of whack. I don’t think it’s up to the poster to give us an item by item breakdown of what our money is actually buying. It seems to me that is a question we should be asking our town government to answer. How did they come to these decisions and what, exactly do tax payers get for the monies paid out?How do contracts get awarded and are we getting the most ‘bang for our buck’ or are we just consistently giving contracts to certain businesses because the town has always used them? Questions like how many hours of actual legal work do the taxpayers of this town get for $100,000 paid to the town attorney? 500 hours? 50 hours? And why are the costs for maintaining town computers so incredibly high? Is there a less expensive way to take care of the town’s computer system? Nobody is asking any questions and until we do the town will continue to do business as usual and we will continue to be drowning in higher taxes for fewer services. It’s going to take more than one or two people to start asking for answers.
Med-i-phor
Just as an X-ray looks only at certain part of the whole picture, useful as it may be in seeing a fracture, it doesn’t say much about bacteria or virus. So as a tool for determining overall health, it’s kind of inefficient.
In the same vein the hurried budget discussion is misfocused. Is there discussion about impacts of Entergy’s large contributions to emergency services, and how that chunk will soon vanish? What about the bloat in school budgets? Is it fair to talk about cuts to services and personnel, while teachers and admins get flown to conferences? Is it right to axe the skatepark yet things like interscholastic sports transport is never even mentioned as an expense we all pay for?
yes and no
Well the only information I am going on is the budget presented in the town report, which I found on the town’s website.
This is exactly why I raised these questions, because at first glance some of these expenditures seem out of proportion, but I do not have the information available to me to be able to say, in as much as my opinion as a random citizen matters, whether they are legitimate and necessary expenses or not.
But with budget cuts being clamored for, doesn’t it behoove us to go over the budget line by line with a skeptical eye before we start laying people off?
When a department that has less than half a dozen employees has a $30,000 computer maintenance line item, I think that raises a question of where that money is going. Because if we need *THAT* much IT work, we really need to work on the computer literacy of the staff. If we are really licensing software annually at such rates then we really need to explore alternatives.
There is a difference between blind trust “Oh this looks high but I’m sure its high for a reason” and seeking to make informed opinions “This looks high, I’d like to ask questions to see if theres a good reason for it, which there may be, but there also may not be”.
How many people in this town wish some more time had been spent asking questions and getting creative a bit sooner in the police and fire project, for example? Preferably before running up a $600k bill for some concept art which we can’t afford to actually build.
I did not intend to firmly state that every line item I questioned was obviously a case of someone handing a sweet contract to their buddy, but rather just a list of line-items that seemed oddly high to me, and are perhaps worth a closer look by those who actually have some power.
It would be even better if someone in the know chimed in and provided an explanation rather than the speculation we are all left with.
In the end, its pretty simple, we have to reduce the budget. If by running a fine tooth comb through every department’s line-items we can cobble together enough nickels and dimes to make some good progress towards a cumulative goal, then I think thats a very worthwhile effort.
If we don’t want to lay people off, we need to find other ways to trim. If we want to finance a large construction project, than the town needs to find ways to do more with less, because that is what they’d be asking the residents of Brattleboro to do yet again, as the growth of the property tax and other living expenses vastly outstrips the growth (ha, growth…) of wages.
Every citizen of Brattleboro
Every citizen of Brattleboro has the right to know how our tax money is being spent. My point is simply that it’s not all that useful to look at isolated line items and imagine whether they might be good or bad. When you point out a line item and say “this looks high” in the absence of any knowledge that could tell you whether or not it is high, this has two effects. The first is that people will tend to believe you. The second is that the people who are actually doing the work that is creating that line item will feel attacked. So when you ask a question like this in public, you really ought to already know the answer. Otherwise the question can really only do harm.
Imagine what it’s like to work in an environment where this kind of scrutiny is prevalent. Someone wants to know why you are spending $30k on computers. You know perfectly well why you are spending $30k on computers. It’s possible that you could spend less if you could find someone to do it for less, but you have someone doing it now who’s doing a good job, and you don’t know of someone else who could do it who’d be doing a good job, who would do it for less. So if someone asks you “isn’t this item too high,” you might not even be able to give a definitive answer yourself.
My point isn’t to say that these questions ought not to be asked. But to ask them in a strictly political setting like this can only work if your intent is simply to cut the item whether it ought to be cut or not. The answer that you have asked for is not an assurance that the money is being properly spent, which someone in a position of power in the town could give you. You have asked specifically why the number is as large as it is. In order to understand and evaluate the answer, you need to know a great deal about the context in which the money is being spent.
If what you are asking for is a formal change in how budget reports are prepared, such that a great deal more information is provided for each line item, that may be a reasonable proposal, but beware that you still aren’t going to really be equipped to evaluate these reports. It may be that more sunshine will mean cost savings, or it may be that more sunshine will just be more stress for town employees, more public criticism, and more heat than light.
So what I’m suggesting is that if you want to be a champion for this issue, you take it upon yourself to try to become more knowledgable, rather than simply asking a leading question in a public forum that nobody working for the town can meaningfully answer.
catch 22
I’m not sure what avenues are reasonably available to the average random citizen to inquire as to the hows and why’s of specific line items *other* than to ask publicly?
Do we expect town staff or department heads to begin fielding phone calls from individual citizens inquiring about or challenging their departmental budgets in detail before that citizen is permitted to publicly question?
I was hoping that someone who *does* know why a given department spends $30k on computers could chime in and provide said information so that I and every other reader of this forum would then know. I’m not interested in turf, if the expenses are legit and necessary then it should be quite easy to demonstrate them as such. All that said, yes the intent of my post was partly genuine curiosity and concern, but also a desire to see the debate shift towards areas of the budget where savings might be found other than gutting the library, for example. I’d rather see our town put every line item under a microscope before we start laying off half the library staff.
If the police and fire project is truly essential then I’d rather see the town do what its residents have been having to do and thats count the nickels and dimes and tighten the belt wherever possible, rather than just raising the tax rate yet again and pointing to a defeated local sales tax as an excuse.
I’m a reasonably intelligent guy and quite financially literate. If I am unable to make value judgements when looking at our town’s printed budget then perhaps it is lacking in information and explanation. If we expect the average resident to be able to be sufficiently knowledgeable and informed to make said value judgements then I’d submit that the background information and context should be far more readily available and digestible, otherwise we resign ourselves to “Just trust those in the know” and as we’ve seen recently with the disparity between RTM and the public vote, that may not be the best way to proceed. Especially when many town meeting reps themselves don’t seem to fully comprehend these numbers and what is behind them.
I am no fan of extra paperwork, but a paragraph or two from each department attached to the budget might go a long way.
All that said, I have to say the municipal budget is far more accessible than the school budget, which unless I’m not finding a more detailed copy, is absolutely opaque and impenetrable to the point of near negligence IMO.