Thursday, April 22, 2010
Simple Math
At the beginning of this past fiscal year, FY 2010, as it is referred to at the Town Hall, Mayor Sue Kay was quick to point out that it was her second year of presenting a balanced budget. She was able to do this with the help of two very important events. She was able to convince the Town Council to allow the sale of the Fulton School property proceeds to be used to offset over a million dollar shortfall in aid from the state, and she was able to convince town employees to switch to the state's Group Insurance Commission. The health insurance savings was going to be $6 million. By doing this she said she could prevent layoffs, and she was true to her word. Although all town departments felt the pinch, not many, if anyone lost their job.
As FY 2011 approaches however, the economy has been slow to recover, the state not only has reduced aid yet again, but they have notified the town that they are not in compliance with Chapter 70 requirements for school spending. There is no hidden budget relief this time around, and in fact, surprise, surprise, health insurance costs have increased. Because the town cannot afford to fund the school's budget properly again this year, they will fall further behind as of FY 2012 thus jeopardizing more state aid and running the risk of having the attorney general forcing the Mayor to restore the budget as required by the law. The end result will be the loss of probably 75 teachers. The fire and police departments will no doubt face layoffs as well.
There is talk of Proposition 2 1/2 over-rides and raising taxes. This is unlikely, which brings us back to that health insurance plan. The $6 million savings has turned into a $13 million cost overrun. Perhaps it might be time for the town to have its employees pay a larger portion of the cost. The town presently pays 80% of the cost of health insurance. In the real world, the private sector that is, the law is that companies are only required to pay 33%. Sounds fair to me. What a savings that would be.
This article was posted by Stanley Ramon on April 22, 2010
Click here to comment on this article.
Comments
The elderly in this town need to wake up and pay up. They've lived in the cheapest (largest) town on the south shore for taxes and fees for far too many years. This town has a limited amount of tax revenue for homeowners, there's NOT enough business tax revenue and the sad reality? Someone's jerking the census of this town to keep the numbers under 56K so that we are still a "town". There's far too much shenanigans that go on in this town and it starts with the leadership -- which has been nothing but liable since I moved here 16 years ago.
Simple Math.
The math is quite simple and nobody wants to do it because its so revealing and most of the elder people in this town have the idea that "they've already paid" and don't want to pay more.
$11.49 per $1000.00 for property taxes. That means a house that is $250K is going to pay about $3K a year in property taxes.
With that said, we have 88+ fireman, a very large police department, and over 3,000 kids in the school system with over 200 teachers on the payroll, not counting the administrative staff.... Add in the DPW that plows and keeps the infrastructure running, as well as all departments that support the town, and you've got a budget that is not being supported by the tax revenue.
How people think we can NOT raise taxes, or vote out 2 1/2 is beyond logic. We have a LOUSY school system thats suffering from budgetary problems, and the town is broke.
Now we have the mayor "going to the well" by selling buildings and changing health care plans (I for one think that you should be doing these things ANYWAY), but the bottom line is that the management of this town is simply going to run out of options.
$11.49 per $1000.00 is not enough money to generate a revenue that supports this town.
Simple math.
Posted by: Weymouth Concerned | August 17, 2010 08:38 AM