Town Mgr on revaluation and 09/10 budget scenarios
Here is the Town Manager's December 16 presentation on the revaluation and a few possible scenarios for the 2009 / 2010 Town budget:
Tim White
Friday, December 19, 2008
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8 comments:
A reevaluation at this time is a farce. The new property values are crazy, are much too high and do not reflect the reality of the market and it's continuing decline.
We have a Dem Council majority that doesn't understand that they are suppose to work for the residents and that the Town Manager is suppose to report to the town council, not vice versa.
Blah blah blah. It's all a shall game. Bottom line: my house is now worth $250, and I'm being assessed at $325.
Someone on the council needs to file a resolution to overturn these assessments. If that doesn't fly, someone needs to file a lawsuit.
I don't have a problem with my new assessment compared to 2003's. I just completed a CMA on my property and it's in the same ballpark as the towns appraisal.
I just listened to 45 minutes of how we are going to meet the $95+ mil. '09-'10 budget. Plenty of work went into the p.p. presentation, the graphs were clear and concise, the pie charts were also easy to follow. In fact, I believe Michael Milone and his staff did an excellent job presenting this data to the Council and the public.
I only have one minuscule problem..it's being done all backwards. You don't see how you can reach the necessary budget dollar amount first! The first thing you do is see what the spending amount is going to cost by going through it line by line and seeing what is absolutely necessary and what can be either cut or deferred to another budget year.
This is what's wrong with America today. Our disposable personal income is less than 1%. This means we spend as much as we make less 1%. If we make $65,000 a year as a medium family income we will spend $64,350.00 and save $650.
What we should be doing personally and equally as a municipality is to come up with a fiscally responsible spending amount and then figure out if we can afford it, if not, we surly don't want to raise a penny in taxes during this recessionary period. We would go back to each line of spending and cut out what we had to in order for us to run our household or our town's spending.
The only way I could spend 4.5% more next year is by getting a 4.5% raise from my boss. Let me tell you right now, I won't be getting a 4.5% raise in '09. I was already told that my payroll will be frozen at the present amount and my 401k match will be eliminated and I'm going to pay more for my heath plan, which will be an inferior policy compared to this past years.
Why can't the Management of Cheshire get it right for a change (budget wise.) If we have to cut 10% from every department in this town then so be it. Let's show some backbone for a change. Forget the pool, forget the turf, forget the overtime pay.
You want to cut 10% from the school budget, then maybe we should bite the bullet and lay off 10% of their employees. I believe the student to teacher ratio is 16 to one. When I was a in high school the ratio was 36 to one, that's more than half the teachers necessary compared to today. Why can't we lay off 10% of the teachers? I would feel sorry for them but it may need to be done.
Someone on the Council needs to go through the spending, line by line and see where we can make intelligent cuts, then come up with a true spending amount in which we can afford. I bet you that if someone got off their seat and did this we would actually be able to hold the line on spending and be able to put some disposable income in the bank and afford to hand back a rebate for every Cheshire taxpayer.
What do I know, I'm just a grease monkey from the Bronx.
The reval is a scam. Here's why.
You know taxes are going to go up in a disasterous economy since you are increasing spending. (Compare Cheshire teacher contract with W. Htfd). Obviously, if you raise the mill rate this year you will be run out of office.
So guess what. YOU RAISE THE ASSESSMENTS. That way, higher spending can still be accomodated with a lower mill rate than 2008.
Watch the Cement Heads paper us with fliers and ads in the Herald touting they "lowered the mill rate" and therefore are "fiscally responsible".
It's a strategy Bernie Madoff would love.
I think in the next couple of years you'll see a taxpayers revolt...so much so they'll make people remove their shoes prior to entering a TC meeting!!! The arrogance of our Mayor is what frosts me...and the TM is not far behind...as far as the reval goes--my Father preached to me from a young age--50 years ago: "Your house is worth what you can get for it when you need to sell it..." In a year or so, that could be CONSIDERABLY less than the reval number. I would suggest 50%--not 70% is a more accurrate number..
The taxpayer revolt and the '09 election need to begin now, with a council proposal to reverse the reval and order a new one. Let the council members each go on record as supporting or opposing this confiscatory reval.
Some of you bloggers don't quite get it yet. It's not the assessment and it's not the mill rate. The bottom line is always "Spending." If the town spends more the tax payers pay more. If for some crazy reason the town cuts spending enough, we may even see a decrease in what we pay, even when the state cuts its aid to the town. "It's the economy stupid," that's the drilled down source of the problem.
MJR
"Some of you bloggers don't quite get it yet. It's not the assessment and it's not the mill rate."
Beg to differ, the assessment is very important. The state does look at the grand list and since Cheshire appears to be a rich town, Cheshire then gets even less from the dwindling state budget. Since the state revenue is down, we can continue to contribute more in state taxes.
You are right about spending and we see that the Council Dems, the TM and the School Board will not let the economy deter their spending.
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