Budget cuts in Framingham
According to CFO Kelly, the Towns 209 million dollar budget for 2011, will be reduced by 4 to 8%. Things still up in the air... Addition litigation funds for the SMOC suit, wage adjustments for Police, fire and public works still not settled for 2009 and 2010. Along with the 450,000 dollars for Quinn funding that the cops want the Town to pay.
About three quarters of the budget is funded by property taxes, 14% comes from State Aid and 9% comes in from local receipts. The 2011 revenue includes an estimated 2.4% increase in the tax levy, a 2% decrease in a total State aid decrease of about 1 million dollars and no state funding for the Quinn Bill. There was talk last night of dropping the tax levy to 2% which would reduce revenue by 762,000 and would drop the average tax bill by about 25.00 dollars.
Police and Fire make up half of the total budget, while Public Works is at 19% and the remaining 25 departments make up 31% of the municipal budget.
In my opinion, the hand writing was on the wall last year about declining revenues and out of control spending on things that will not generate income or stop the bleeding. Town Meeting will be faced with hard questions about the budget and while everyone I know has had to cut back, it's time for TMM's to hold the Town to the same reality as for the rest of us live by and spend money wisely..
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 11:21 AM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
You can't spend money you don't have. Seems like a pretty simple concept to understand. About time the town learns that.
Cutting the Quinn bill funding seems like it should not even be open for discussion. We either pay for teachers, or we pay for cops to go to school and learn how to weave baskets on our dime. Not much of a choice there if you ask me.
I am curious about how the pay rates of our police, fire, and other town employees compare to the rates for those position in other towns across the state, and especially in neighboring towns. Are we competitive? That should be a pretty good measure of whether we give raises, hold steady, or maybe even cut some salaries. And for those departments that go over thier budgets, fire the managers. It is their job to balance the budget so make them do their jobs, and that includes the CFO and town manager. Maybe we always do balance our budget and they are doing a good job. BUt it seems to me they are always a bit surprised by the fact we are taking in less money than we planned, why are they so off about those estimates? Don't they listen to the news? Have they not noticed the country is in a recession? Or do they just think Framingham is different than the rest of the towns in this state? I am a state employee so I have to go home now, snow day. Hope everyone enjoys the half day.
4% of a $209 million budget is a lot of money, in fact, it is $8,360,000. That is a big cut to a budget that supposedly was already cut to the bone. So they need to cut more than $8million more. Will be interesting to see where they decide they can make these cuts, since they told us last year they had cut just about everything they thought they could. No reason to think things will get better this year, which means less income next year, so cuts to next years budget over and above what gets cut from this year's budget. Seems to me it is time for the town to look at implementing some long term plan to address this issue. How about being proactive instead of always being reactive?
Anyone in this town ever heard of fiscal responsibility? You know, that training that tells you not to charge something if you don't have a plan for paying the charge bill when it comes in, or not spending your last dime on a lottery ticket as the method of long term planning. Seems we need some more of this fiscal responsibility here in Framingham.
I got a question. Did Framingham send their employees home today like the state did, pay them to sit home when there wasn't even any snow>
Snowing out, time to go home everyone. These budget cuts will be the topic of discussion or the next few months I am sure. Will be following this blog to see where this all goes.
Nothing to do with the budget... Bob Dylan played for President Obama last night at the White House, the song he did, he wrote in 63, The Times they are a hanging, to celebrate the anniversary of the civil rights movement. At 68, he's still as current as anyone in music today. Saying, "he was pleased and was honored to be asked to play that song. He always supported the civil rights movement and still does today.
Gee wizzz... I've never heard him say one thing.. about anything that had to do with any movement.
He's still my hero.
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