Templeton: Officials ready budget for vote
Eryn DionNews Staff Writer
TEMPLETON – The Board of Selectmen voted Monday night to proceed into Saturday’s Annual Town Meeting with the budget prepared and presented by the Advisory Board, outlining over $570,000 in cuts from the Fiscal Year 2014 budget.
While the Advisory Board’s budget had been tweaked since it was first presented at the end of April, the spreadsheet still called for the elimination of most secretary and assistant positions within departments and Advisory Board Chairman Wilfred Spring said his team focused mainly on condensation and consolidation.
“At some point the town has to decide if it can afford to have that many employees working for us,” Mr. Spring said.
Mr. Spring also said the revised edition of the budget contains changes designed to bring back departments devastated by the recent $505,000 slash to this year’s operating budget, which resulted in the layoff of 15 town employees.
“We’re talking about bringing back people,” said Mr. Spring to introduce the changes.
While the original version called for the consolidation of the Highway and Cemetery Departments into an all-purpose Department of Public Works and the elimination of most Cemetery staff, Mr. Spring said he was told more recently the merger would not be possible.
The new budget calls for $260,000 in funding for Highway Department salaries – a $30,000 cut from 2014 that equates to the loss of only one employee for Highway Department Superintendent Francis “Bud” Chase, who lost four full-time employees after last week’s cuts.
The Cemetery Department would be allotted $64,000 — another $30,000 reduction — in salaries to cover two full-time employees for Cemetery Superintendent Alan Mayo, although their usual summer seasonal help would not be funded.
Mr. Spring then suggested dividing the extra $60,000 between the Police and Fire Departments, with $35,000 to $40,000 going towards a new officer for the Police Department to bring them back to normal rotation and $10,000 to the Fire Department.
Due to cuts, the Police Department is currently working without a third shift from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. until July 1, although they will still be strapped for hours and manpower in the new fiscal year.
The leftover money, according to the Advisory Board, could be used to pad the financial management team’s salaries and ensure the town attracts qualified candidates for the open positions.
The Building Inspector and Health Agent would be reduced to a per diem basis and many expense accounts would be whittled down to bare bones.
Selectmen Doug Morrison offered his own version of the budget on behalf of the Board of the Selectmen that focused reducing the number of hours in the work week in order to preserve jobs.
Under Mr. Morrison’s budget, most full-time employees would work a 32 hour week, with the Police and Fire Departments given 36 hours.
“The reason I looked at a 32 hour week was because there was no way to get the town up to 40 hours without a drastic cut in people,” Mr. Morrison explained. “It would be better to have 32 hours and be able to operate the town than have 40 hours but not enough people.”
Mr. Morrison also suggested small, yearly overrides of about $0.25 to cover the town’s uncontrollable spending increases, such as Worcester County Regional Retirement contributions and insurance costs.
The overrides would amount to about an extra $40 a year for families but would help the town slowly restore services cut over the years.
Both Mr. Markel and other members of the Board of Selectmen were concerned about reducing the Town Accountant to 20 hours per week under Mr. Morrison’s budget, saying it might not be enough to attract a qualified candidate.
“In order to not stay in this situation, we need to make sure we’re adequately funding the financial team,” explained member Julie Farrell.
Ultimately, the Board of Selectmen were left to decide between the Advisory Board’s 40 hour-per-week budget with most assistant positions eliminated and Mr. Morrison’s well-staffed budget operating at 32 hours-per-week.
“This is a devastating budget,” Mr. Morrison commented. “The Advisory Board’s budget is a devastating budget. Neither one is very rosey.”
After a motion and a second, the board voted unanimously to proceed with the budget presented by the Advisory Board.
The town’s department heads, in conjunction with Mr. Markel, also presented some budget recommendations and Mr. Markel said there were some creative ideas he would like to pass on to the Advisory Board before they conduct their final revisions to the budget during their meeting Wednesday night.
Residents will vote on the budget during Saturday’s town meeting from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the Narragansett Regional Middle School auditorium.
I hope the scbool system will be taking cuts as well.
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ReplyDeleteDavid, since there was just a vote by taxpayers to take on more debt for new elementary school and the minimum contribution went up 3.56% from FY14 to FY15 combined with last years school budget, I think the answer to your question is probably not. In fact if you look at an article from TGN which is on the blog from last fall, you will see it stated that after an increase in state aid, Templeton's assessment was lowered but Phillipston's was left where it was. so in a regional school district, where the state aid (chapter 70) goes to the district rather than each member town, Templeton got a reduction in their assessment but Phillipston did not. Perhaps that was a move in hopes of getting Templeton to pass the override. Perhaps there is some rule tucked away that allows that but two towns share state aid and when state aid is increased, I would think both towns should get the benefit. So considering how that whole issue went last year, I would not look for the district to be make any cuts.
ReplyDeleteI think part of the reason people voted no to the override was to get the state to look at the School budget, and possibly the Light Department's budget. The fact that the state officials decided not to pay these departments a visit, was just wrong, because now people felt misled. I did not vote no, maybe it is because I have a first hand knowledge of how hard it has been for the people who work for the town, and I do not think it is fair that they suffer while the people at the Light and Water Departments get big raises every year. Our town workers are as valuable as any of the administration at Light and Water.
DeleteAs we sorted through the Budget for the last time last night till 10:30. I couldn't help think on my way home the Light dept. has let the town down bad. Their poor management and spending habits have come to roost. When you pay your bill and pay the customer charge over and over again you should know it's just another way for them to bank money and not share for the good of the town. At the town meeting we should hear from the commission on how they don't feel the money they gave the town back hasn't been used the way they would like.Well now we don't have it so the 150,000.00 we should get is to be cut from the town one way or another. The way we will do it is to cut unnessary items and some jobs and families will lose the income from those jobs. I guess with the Light commission opinions and labor force not being cut they would be fine with the results of their lack of spending restraints. The lights will go out in Templeton unless "you pay" for them.The recreation budget is now 0. the staff has been cut in all departments other than L+W. So i guess we can all see the impact the Light commission has on the town and it will show them what we use to do with the money they returned us from the over charges we have been paying them for many many years. It should be a crime for them to charge the town 6.00 per meter every month to be a customer. They should turn over all extra other income they get and we should be in a better rate class if we have such a great job being done over there.The thing we always hear is were lower than the grid compare to the grid the grid pays taxes/shareholders and they play by the book. Held to the same standards we would be just as well off if not better if we were in the grid. They would tell us if we were now allowed to have Net Metering.
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