Consider all the information carefully before May 5
To The Editor:Virginia Wilder
Templeton
To The Editor:
Do you know how much your taxes will go up if all of the ballot questions pass at the upcoming election? You have been told by the interim Town Administrator and others and through mass mailings, that you should vote ‘yes’ for a $505,000 override for the town despite the fact that we cannot get complete answers as to how the $505,000 error occurred. I think you deserve to have some real facts before you make your decision.
‘FY’ stands for fiscal year. This is the annual time period in which the municipal budget operates. Our fiscal year begins on July 1 and ends on June 30 of the following year.
For instance, FY 2014 will end on June 30 of this year. July 1, 2014 will begin the FY15 budget year.
Consider the FY 2013 tax rate was finally set at $14.12.
Since then, the FY 2014 tax rate (now over three months late) has not been set due to failure of the town to report to the state Department of Revenue (note that the treasurer filed all treasurer related documents to the DOR by November of 2013. What happened after that remains a mystery).
Failure to make these filings leads to failure to be able to set the tax rate. Failure to set the tax rate means that tax bills for the last two quarters cannot be sent out, thus taxes are not paid and the town has no operating budget.
The current administration is planning to set the tax rate after a vote at the 2014 Special Town Meeting held within the Annual Town Meeting, under the assumption that their $505,000 will pass.
In the fall, the town approved a $620,000 override that has not yet impacted your tax rate. If you vote for the $505,000 and the $500,000 overrides in the coming election, all three of these will become part of the 2014 tax rate. In addition to these three numbers. The levy limit will increase by 2.5 percent over FY13 for FY14 ($191,623.77).
The tax levy is the total amount that can be raised in any particular year through taxation. When we are trying to determine what the tax levy will be, we take last years levy and multiply that number by 2.5 percent — now add new growth numbers and lastly you add on all the new overrides. The resulting number becomes your new tax levy.
So let’s add this all up.
Last years levy limit: ($7,664,911)
Multiply this by 2.5 percent: ($191,623)
Add New Growth: ($54,000 - per the Assessor)
Add Override passed in fall: ($620,000)
School override: ($500,000)
Town override: ($505,000)
Grand total: ($9,535,534 - the FY14 levy limit)
This increase for FY14 represents a 24.4% increase over FY13.
To see what your new dollar amount will be simply multiply the amount paid on your FY13 tax bill by the 24.4% (or 1.244) to see the impact of these increases. We would now be at an increase of $3.45 over the FY13 number, which would put the tax rate at $17.57 per thousand.
Small regular increases in the tax rate are necessary to keep up with the rising cost of goods and services. This increase, however, is way beyond small and presents a significant burden on tax payers.
Personally, I am not satisfied with the incomplete or lack of real answers to important questions from the Selectmen with regards to the $505,000 error.
Therefore, I am not comfortable voting them another amount of money to throw at a problem they may or may not understand.
And do not fall for the scare tactics. If the state comes in, there may be an oversight board for 3 to 5 years to get things back in control and make sure that things are headed back in the right direction.
The Oversight Board will examine carefully things like accounting methods and use of general fund monies. It will oversee the transition to a new Treasurer and a new Accountant. It will also dictate the need for capital expenditures.
I firmly believe that state intervention may be a good thing for this town. Last year when our bond rating was dropped, Moody’s Investment and Banking Services wrote an article to explain why our rating was dropped and they felt that the current administration does not understand the finances of the town.
Are you comfortable and can you afford to vote in a half-million override that no one is willing to fully explain? I am not.
I will vote for the school override because of the dire need for an elementary school and the fact that we have already been through the acquisition of the property, and the initial feasibility studies.
We are now in the design feasibility stage. It would be foolish now not to continue. Also some of this money will be reimbursed by the Massachusetts School Building Authority. There are no mysteries involved.
This is a very personal vote that each and every voter in the town should consider carefully before going to the ballot box on May 5. There are many people in this town that simply cannot afford the whole package.
People who have lived here all their lives will have to give up their homes. We need to protect those homes from being lost or abandoned because of excessive increases in taxes.
So, please do vote no matter how you are voting. Make sure you are informed and vote the way you feel best suits your particular situation. I have faith that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
We have some new blood on the Board of Selectmen. They are people that seem to have a passion for the good of Templeton and it sounds like they are anxious to restore sanity and unity to our town. I am feeling good about prospects for recovery.
Virginia Wilder
Templeton
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ReplyDeletePerhaps the sanity and unity selectmen could have explained this if Ms. Wilder had asked them. I saw a statement by Kenn Robinson that said all the people who could answer the questions either no longer worked for the town or no longer served, but all of the information is in the selectmen's office, treasurer's and accountants office and or the town clerk's office. There was/is $17,000.00 in monies for an audit expense that could be encumbered to be used for an audit of FY14 without removal from stabilization. On another front, a citizen's petition with Ms. Wilder's name on it states that advertisement in The Gardner News as if to specify that newspaper. Unless. Ms. Wilder has stock in the News, I believe the MGL that says advertisement in a general circulation newspaper which I believe if anyone checks, you will find more people get the Worcester Telegram in Templeton than The Gardner News so perhaps to inform more people, it would be better to advertise in the Telegram rather than the Gardner News. Either way, advertising is already a requirement of the law and specifying The Gardner News makes it appear Ms. Wilder has connections with the Gardner News. Too bad Ms. Wilder did not write this letter with these concerns earlier then the selectmen would have had time to answer them. Better yet, she could have asked them at an open meeting so Mr. Robinson or Ms. Brooks could have answered them and brought unity to the community.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the MSBA website, if the pro-pay system is used, it says communities can avoid having to borrow the MSBA's share of project costs, which reduces the amount of debt on the local books and interest costs related to said borrowing. Sounds like if you have a $500,000.00 project, the town does not have to borrow the entire amount. I recall (this should be on video) the superintendent of schools saying as much, that the town would only have to borrow $200,000.00 so there should be no $500,000.00 override amount - unless taxpayers were misled again. Either way, capital expenses are debt exclusions, that is a tax increase for a specific time for a specific project, they are not permanent such as tax overrides and while it does hurt for a while, debt exclusions do go away after a period of time. Overrides are forever and this is important. Perhaps if Templeton had had those small increases yearly rather than using free cash all those years, this problem would not be so great. Remember, if you do not want to centralize purchase of supplies, do not want to regionalize to save tax dollars and you do not want to have pay as you need positions such as health agent, then you have to pay for those services and the way the money is raised is by taxation.
ReplyDeleteOne of the errors made with the FY2014 budget presented last May (2013) was the ambulance receipts account, it was listed as revenue to the general ledger that was available for use and of course that is wrong, since it was meant to be a set aside, to go into the ambulance receipts account so it should have been listed as an expense. That is one thing that caused this problem. Other things like debt and retirement were not posted correctly so expenses were greater than shown. I believe if you check, the budget was put together and presented by Will Spring and the advisory board, you may wish to inquire with them if that is correct. History shows us that in Templeton, there was constant use of free cash, transfers from various accounts including using 911 grant money to subsidize salary accounts so money in salary accounts was used for other expenditures because no actual budget was in place, it was a constant shuffling of funds from here to there and back (as in where is the pea now). There was also the growing of town government without the required increase in income (taxes) to pay for it all. In 2012 the master shuffler was gone and it all began to unravel and now it is being rebuilt and I hope people give them a chance to do it.
ReplyDeleteIf The Gardner News is to be believed, a state agency, DOR's Deb Wagner was in Templeton looking over the books of FY2014, certainly if there was any impropriety, she would have seen it. I also believe the FY2013 books were looked over rather well by the same agency. Perhaps an audit of the past ten years would be in order though to see what if any mistakes were made that may have affected Templeton's financial picture. I think we should have the use of 911 grant funds audited separately, perhaps by someone from that agency. Perhaps check who audited the CDBG funds as well as where the money came from to pay for those audits.
ReplyDeleteLets hope any audit includes an audit of the Templeton municipal light plants books as well, so we can see the cost of the wind turbine, the cost for Templeton's involvement with BWPCC and MMWEC.
ReplyDeleteLike my husband told me after we left the Light and Water Department meeting, when we were loudly told, we did not own the Light Company any longer," Something is very wrong here !! " "These people are hiding something, and they do not want us to find it !!" I did make sure I included the fact that we were told we did not own the Light Company any longer, and I was bothered by what we were told, as I know we never agreed to give the business away. As I said, that was part of the testimony I left with the Judicial Committee last week in Boston. As I always say. it will all come out in the wash, and no one will be able to stop the process this time, I hope. Bev.
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