okay all so I googled new england public power plants like Jeff B said to do and here is what I found.
the first thing I read on this website is
Public Power:
the not-for-profit electric service
woo boy some people are profiting off of TL&W
Then I read
In New England, there are 79 electric light companies that are owned and operated by the communities they serve. They are governed by elected or appointed officials who represent the interests of their customers, and have brought low-cost, reliable electric service to their customers for over 100 years.
I agree with the reliable service -thanks to the "worker bees" as someone on the blog said. But
woo boy - elected officials who represent the interest of their customers. No
I looked around this website - look around it yourselves - i couldn't find a pilot formular. maybe one of you smarter people hee-hee-hee, can find it and let us know.
Thanks for reading my opinions - Pauly
Nothing to do with the power but I was just wondering where to find on Templeton's page the homeowners that are delinquent with their real estate taxes. I was under the impression that the list was to be posted.
ReplyDeleteIt will be posted soon. It hasn't been posted yet. The list needs to be updated before it is posted. Hopefully, by the beginning of the New Year.
ReplyDeleteHey Julie - One problem with posting "delinquent" taxpayers are the errors made by the town.
DeleteA couple years ago, we paid our taxes on-line, at the very end of December. We had just received the bill, drove to town hall, it was closed. An employee was leaving, she told us we could pay on line.
Went home found the site, paid on line from our checking account. Received an e-mail confirming our payment. The money was transferred from our account. No problem, right? Wrong!
Apparently, Templeton doesn't do that good a job reconciling income with source. When we received our next tax bill, it said we owed back taxes and fees. We had a Home Equity line of credit open, so the bank contacted us asking why we hadn't paid our taxes. It was 100% Templeton's fault. We paid, they got the money, yet we still had grief.
We were very pissed, to say the least. I can imagine how pissed I would be had my name been published anywhere.
By my experience, Templeton has no business publishing any names until they fix their system. The response we got from the Collectors office was very poor. I wouldn't trust them to do a perfect job. And that is what is required if you're going to play this "shame game".
fix the system or just have the tax collector and treasurer do their job.Payments should be credited to peoples accts when the town receives the payment. all payments whether online or inhand should be reconciled daily.
DeleteThe material I was referring to was public power PILOT and there is a pdf file on the subject of payment in lieu of taxes. Under the northeast, the median was 4.5% of net elctric operating revenue which is at the bottom of one of the financial sheets in the annual town report. I did the math using 4.5% of net revenue and came up with around $385,000.00. Don't have the material in front of me but it is out there. It was more than 100K I know that. Wonder why the light & water commission did not refuse pay like the rest of Templeton elected officials, well more correctly, that pay was cut by other people other than those elected people because some wanted to keep there pay, oops, sorry, the taxpayers need the money.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel the TMLP should pay more simply because Templeton "needs the money". It's not their problem. BUT what angers me is that they dole out a far smaller amount of money they "claim" is in Lieu of taxes and then expect to be treated like heros on a white horse. They need to belly up and pay their FAIR SHARE of PILOT, no more...no less. Until that happens they will continue to to "feel the heat"
DeleteI believe their pay comes from operating revenues, not from taxes. Therefore if they gave up the money it would go right back into TMLP coffers, not back to the town. I could be wrong and I stand corrected if so.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the pay/ stipend could go toward the PILOT payment
ReplyDeleteMark, I understand your issue, and you should have gotten at the very least, an apology. On behalf of the people of Templeton, please accept an apology from a representative of the people of Templeton. That does not give you much but it is something you should have gotten back then. One problem of small towns seems to be and I believe history proves this true, sometimes you get people elected or employed because, well they are well known, well liked or both and sometimes it can be name recognition. Even if they do not do a good job, they keep getting retained because most people in a small town know everyone and most are nice people and it is hard to tell someone you are not good at your job so you are not going to be reappointed, you are in effect, fired. Once again, from a financial point, Templeton needs to operate like a business and sometimes you have to be cold and calculating. As for the shame game, it works and there are many examples of other cities and towns who regularly do this and many people pay up rather than see their names on the list. I understand some really cannot pay, and we have to look at that. As for publishing the tax list, I support it because it does work. In the future, if something like that happens again, please contact me and I will assist you anyway that I can. You wish "us" to fix "our" system, well that entails getting our accounts receivable in order so we have all the revenue we are suppose to have so we can set a proper budget and have the funds for expenses. That is getting "our" system in order. My opinion as always
ReplyDeleteJeff - you understand my issue, but you support publishing the list?
ReplyDeleteOne thing about government that irks me, why do people place it on a higher plateau than private enterprise? Every business is owed money, somehow they survive without the shame game. What makes town government so different that "they" get super powers that are not available to private business. Above you state that Templeton needs to operate like business. Which business uses public humiliation as a collection tool?
We have a very powerful tool, which is to place a tax lien on property. That's what a bank does, and sometimes they need to foreclose. If Templeton is supposed to run like a business, why not proceed along the lines that any other lien holder must pursue?
Thanks for your apology, it isn't necessary. We got everything straightened out eventually, and I no longer use the on-line payment system. I wrote what I wrote because there is a real chance of getting it wrong, and doing some innocent people real harm. In my case, I am sure that my tax payment was listed as money owed, even though the town had collected this money. How sure are you that there are not similar cases?
This is a small town, I've lived here for 27 years. A simple phone call on the collector's part could have saved me much grief. Sorry, I don't trust them enough to support this "shame game". I don't believe I am the only one who paid and was not credited with the payment. Your point about me not taking ownership ("us" and "our"), is made. Maybe it has something to do with town employees and their attitudes that they don't have to contact citizens, but they do contact my bank, and that sending out a past due notice instead of looking into it is good enough. There are attitudes taken by these "public servants" that create the "us versus them" situation.
A tax Lien is not going to help if the person has no intention of leaving their home. The lien will stay on forever till the property is sold. That situation does no good at this time when money is needed now. Private businesses bring their customers to small claims or collections, which is their way to SHAME the customer. DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO GET THE MONEY OWED YOU, MOST CAN CLEARLY PAY IT BUT CHOOSE NOT TO BECAUSE THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT.
DeleteActually what mostbusiness'do is to write off the uncollectibles on their fed income taxes, taking money from that pot, then they sometimes sell those accounts to collection which alot of time you end up in court and if a newspaper covers that and chooses to do so, it will be published in the paper. One other thing a business can do is charge other customers more to cover the loss or write-offs. I do not think most people wish to pay more in taxes to cover those who don't pay. Just so youknow Mark, I pushed for that information to be published because those who can pay usually do. It is a tool we have to get things in order. It is not perfect but neither is the world we live in. Go to selectmen meeting and voice your concerns and maybe they will listen to you.
ReplyDeleteBusiness pays income taxes, Templeton does not. When business "writes off" bad debt, it reduces the federal income tax liability, because they actually didn't get payed. I don't think it is taken from a Federal pot. But they do reduce their tax liability. That's a big difference.
Deletecan't we at least publish the ones that never pay
ReplyDeleteWe can and we will publish the list once it has been checked and verified. I'm sorry Mark had such a bad experience with online bill paying. I always pay my real estate and excise taxes online. I also always print out my receipts. It is probably wise to call the tax collector a few weeks later to confirm receipt.
ReplyDeleteThe town needs every dime it can get. Between the federal fiscal cliff and the state 9C cuts next year's budget will be bleak.
Printing out the receipt wouldn't help keep you off "the list". We had the paper trail. Sloppy bookkeeping caused the town to lose track of our payment, even though they got the money. Why didn't the tax collector look into it before sending out the late notice and notifying the bank? We had e-mail confirmation from "collector@templeton1.org" They also had $592 with no source attributed.
ReplyDeleteSloppy accounting/bookkeeping like this has no business compiling a list of people to shame. Get this fixed before you decide to publish a list.
One thing taxpayers can do is when a person is up for reappointment and you feel that position has been sloppy or unprofessional is show up for the meeting and speak to this before that person/s are reappointed. Templeton is not the only community to publish delinquent taxpayers and I am quite sure Templeton is not the only community that has placed someone on the delinquent list who had actually paid up. Hard to get financial affairs in order without trying to collect all that is owed first.
ReplyDeleteJeff - We can agree to disagree. My opinion is it (publishing this list of shame) won't do much. We certainly won't solve our budget problems. Since I don't think it will do much good, it seems a lot of risk for not much benefit. I just don't believe there are significant numbers of people who choose to not pay their taxes. And I think tax lien is the way to go. But only after calling the people and asking them if they paid, could they please supply any info, as the town seems to have lost their records.
ReplyDeleteCome on, Mark. You're a financially conservative guy. You know that the town is in a situation where it cannot refrain from going after money owed just because one person had a bad experience with the tax collector. If that didn't happen to you, you would be all for posting the offenders. Its a crappy situation all around, for sure. If the town was run better, maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation. But we have to start somewhere in revamping and rebuilding the town's infrastructure. Yes, town operations need to be handled more professionally, like as business. But unlike a business municipal government is supposed to be transparent and all financials are supposed to be public record--even the mistakes. So, what are we supposed to do? If there's $200k out there to be collected, do we leave it flapping in the breeze as to not offend someone even if it is a mistake? What is most important is that after the list is published, they act quickly to remove names that pay up and/or are on there by mistake. And even more important, look at how taxes are collected and improve the process so we don't get back to this situation again.
ReplyDeleteCollecting unpaid taxes will not by itself solve anything, but it is a step in the right direction. Another thing is when you fail to pay on time, there is suppose to be a penalty but you may be surprised at the number who always pay late yet have the penalty waived, that too has to stop. If one pays for being late, than all need to pay. The names are there who always seem to pay late but no penalty. Kind of like selectmen picking and choosing what by-laws they will follow. One does not have to agree but until changed, things need to be done. In my opinion, you cannot say get your house in order then say do not publicly post who is behind or have failed to pay, it makes no sense. Part of getting it in order is collecting past due taxes, period. People who live in a community want and expect services and those services are paid in a big way by taxes and everyone needs to contribute, that is only fair and democratic. I recall a history lesson from many years ago in Templeton elementary school, it involved the pilgrims and the "no work, no food" maybe the earliest tax in america. If one did not help out with the farming and other chores, no food for the winter months. So, pay your taxes or you end up on the list of delinquent taxpayers. As Forrest Gump said, "thats about all I have to say on that." There is a puzzle that has to be put together to get Templeton on track and that is one piece and by itself it will not do much, but combine it with other moves and it will aid in getting Templeton back on track, Good Night
ReplyDeleteMark we are not talking about people who maybe missed a payment. Or who are in payment plans because of hard times. we are talking about people who haven't paid taxes in years. According to the bylaw taxpayers can be a year behind. that would mean anyone who has not paid since Nov 1, 2011. Tax liens have already been put on a lot of taxpayers (check out the Worc reg of Deeds) some of these people have not paid in years. These are people who have ignored their bills and who have not even attempted to make payments.
ReplyDeleteJeff - just for the record, I am in favor of the town collecting all taxes owed.
ReplyDelete