Monday, January 17, 2011

The Budget and Capital Spending

While we wait to hear how many Town employee's will be cut next year to plug the almost 7 million dollar deficit, department heads have asked for 24 million in capital requests. Our CFO has said that the Town should be able to take on 2/3rds of that, which begins July 1.

So we will close a school or two, lay off 200 employee's or so, pay millions in lawsuits, overtime, outrageous health care benefits and millions more for un-funded mandates.... and still borrow 16 million dollars..... I'm at a loss to understand the logic.

The new jobs outlook is at best, bleak. Foreclosures this year will outpace last year. A few thousand residents more than last year from Framingham will be unemployed. Property values and home prices will continue to fall this year and our schools will be decimated by budget cuts and lower local aid from Beacon Hill.

The question is, are the Town leaders that out of touch with reality?

7 Comments:

At January 17, 2011 at 5:36 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are painting a pretty gloomy picture here Jim. Not saying you are wrong, but if you are right, we have one hell of a year ahead of us. This depression/recession has to end at some time, doesn't it? In the meantime, we have to be able to maintain what we have, so don't we have to spend this money on capital budget things?

 
At January 17, 2011 at 5:43 PM , Blogger Gandalf said...

The doom and gloom don't seem to have landed on any of our Selectmen. They must all have paying jobs or state pensions they are drawing. Those of us in the real world simply can not understand how so many people can be so out of touch. I lost my job 18 months ago, well trained, and years of experience in my field, never did I expect to be out of work this long. When I got serious about looking about 6 months ago, I thought I would have a job by the end of the year for sure. I don't. Unemployment may run out before I find a job. I gotta tell you, that made me see the light. We are in a black hole here with no new jobs and some old jobs still going away to China. As long as we have that going on, we should not be spending money on replacing anything that ain't broken. Simple as that.

 
At January 17, 2011 at 5:52 PM , Blogger Linda and George said...

WHat did I miss? We are borrowing 16 million? Who approved that?

 
At January 19, 2011 at 1:01 PM , Blogger Can't think of a name said...

I think the CFO is smart so I got to say she must know what she is talking about. I agree that our Selectmen are out of touch, but hopefully, at least 1 of them will be replaced in the elections and maybe a more level head will prevail.

 
At January 19, 2011 at 1:25 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anyone know who is actually running for sure for Selectman? I hear Rizoli is running but is anyone else going to oppose the sitting selectmen?

 
At January 19, 2011 at 2:19 PM , Blogger SoxFan said...

I have a question for you. Where is the town going to get the money to pay the snow removal costs over runs for this year? I am willing to bet that what was appropriated for the entire winter has already been spent, and we have another storm heading in later this week, and the whole month of February still in front of us. How are we going to pay for that?

 
At January 22, 2011 at 12:01 PM , Blogger Unknown said...

When your student/teacher ratio is 11.5 to 1, there's plenty of room for decimating :-)

That magical number of 200 to cut is simply not correct. More like 50-60.

Still no one talking about OPEB. See:

http://www.framinghamma.gov/Weblink8/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=17146&&&dbid=0

That will eliminate 300 across the board when it becomes mandated by the state.

 

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