Saturday, April 10, 2010

Town-side spending cut proposal

As I've been saying, I hope to further reduce spending on the Town side. In particular, I want to defund the positions of:

1) Personnel Director / Assistant Town Manager; and
2)
Zoning Enforcement Officer / Asst Town Planner.

But talk of tax cuts is easy. Acknowledging the services that are impacted by spending cuts is the harder part. So I offer staff's defense of the ZEO / ATP position:Also worth noting is that the ZEO / ATP position is currently vacant.

For some of you, the defunding of this position may appear to be a no-brainer. And IMO, if the position is unfilled for another year "the wheels won't fall off" of Town Hall. So this may seem to be a perfect place to reduce spending. But I also know that there are some Council members who are quite supportive of these two positions. So I'm simply continuing in my defunding efforts by addressing the needs to:

1) find five votes; and
2) navigate the parliamentary procedures.

And though I've not yet been able to count five votes to defund the two positions, I also recall that my efforts on:

1) performance contracting;
2) eliminating defined benefit plans; and
3) the pool structure


all went nowhere for a while and took time to build support. So that may be the same approach that I need to take with the defunding of these two positions. And that's fine with me. I understand things don't always happen overnight.

Btw, the defunding of these two positions would also allow for an additional mill rate reduction of 0.05.

Tim White

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

There should be a hiring freeze until this economy improves period. Forget about what positions etc. It's the TM problem. The budget should be reduced further on both the BOE and the Town. Fight for that and you will help many taxpayers(residential,commercial and industial) who are hurting.

Anonymous said...

So you want to fire the Personnel Director?

Anonymous said...

Tim, you seem to be battling with town hall and going after the little things. .005 mil means nothing at all. You are so outspoken your party wants nothing to do with you because of your blog and strongly worded comments. Please try to calm down a little and mabye your peers will work wth you instead of dreading serving on the same council with you..
As far as the pool goes close it.

Anonymous said...

Your comments and thoughts are far from mainstream, even for a rightie, that you can't even get four members of your own party to sign on.

And as far as the Town Manager, he should be getting direction from the Council as a body or a majority thereof, not from nine individuals. He's NOT your personal lackey! What should he do if the nine indivuals each gave him their own marching orders and they conflicted - who is he supposed to listen to???

tim white said...

8:35 I don't think my thoughts are so much outside the mainstream as they are non-considerations by politicians. As I mentioned in the post, no one was thinking about many other issues I successfully brought to fruition. And I didn't even mention the police.

As for the TM, how does this post relate to the TM? Please try to stay on topic or I may simply delete your entire comments, even if they are partly on topic.

Anonymous said...

Tim means that if you don't have nice things to say about him, he will delete you. He honestly does not care what the voters want as long as it appears he is making progress. There have been ideas posted in the past that could have saved money or expanded services without increasing taxes and tim doesn't even read them. He has his agenda and nothing will make him sway.

Tim is the villian in every "B" horror film. Someone wronged him in the past so he gets a makeover and a new identity and gets his revenge. Tim just forgot to get the makeover or identity

tim white said...

8:07 luv u 2! ;)

Anonymous said...

In defense of Mr. White (with whom I have significant differences of opinion), he is not only exercising his freedom of speech, but providing a forum for others to do so as well. Nobody forced us here, and it seems that numerous responses critical of Mr. White and Republicans are still posted. Who else is providing a local forum? While I certainly won't vote for him, I do recognize that he represents a constituency in Cheshire and contributes significantly to public debate. I also feel that the blog sheds light on TC workings that would otherwise function largely behind closed doors in back room dealings. So, while I hope you lose in your next election, keep up with the blogging!

Anonymous said...

8:07
"He has his agenda and nothing will make him sway."

Sounds like you have your own too.

If this were my blog, I would delete half the ridiculous comments, like yours.

Tim leaves many things up here, even if they are slanderous towards him. He will remove slanderous comments about others though.

Again, you sound like a jealous, poor loser who doesn't know what to do with a town that is in control by a fiscally responsible council. Deal with it!

10:44 is correct, even as a detractor of Tims. He provides a space for all of us to comment, not just people who agree with his views.
We do get tired of the childness of some commentors who have nothing better to say then ctiticize Tim. If you don't like it, start your own blog and see how many followers you get.