Finance sub committee meeting... see what's coming down the road
This meeting is so enlightening and scary at the same time. The proposed capital projects list is huge for the next few years.
A few things that stuck out were the request for more studies on our Town owned buildings. There's 200,000.00 in that line item for facilities. I wrote to G King last night and asked why we needed more studies and wrote that J Palini would know more about our buildings than anyone.
The other area is the amount of road repair, 3 million in the next years budget. I wrote to G King and asked why we needed to put that much into road repair.
Lastly, the DPW budget for water and sewer is huge. No getting around that our system needs to be updated. But my rant is how much is in the budget for details... G King reports that it's 875,000.00 dollars. I would think professional flaggers would or could save so money.
Have a looksee at the show.. Mary Ellen does her best to defend all the proposed spending. But G King made it clear, they can't raise the water and sewer rates past 1 or 2% every year. Some hard choices have to be made.
http://207.172.210.8:5002/CablecastPublicSite/show/1593?channel=1
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 2:37 PM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
hooray for George King for making them answer the tough questions
So police details are in the budget for water and sewer? My question is why does one department in the city have to pay another for their services? I get paying for a detail if you are a private contractor but why pay at all if you are a city department needing a detail cop? I agree about flaggers, but why should we need to pay for either?
King is saying that water rates can only raise 1-2% a year. How much were they raised during the time he was Town Manager?
I think the annual water rate increases are unsustainable if you are a senior living on a tight fixed income. Not all retired people have nest eggs of private retirement funds to draw on. But on the other hand, not addressing the issues with the infrastructure is just kicking the ball down the road for others to deal with a much larger problem in a few years. We need to cut budgets which will impact our property tax rate which we have control over. When that goes down or at least does not increase, then we can handle the water increase. Or we need to have a better program in place for assisting our seniors, who in most cases have been paying their fair share for years and years here in Framingham and deserve some relief.
It's a matter of public safety the police will say. And I agree, why does one department get to charge the City at full price for their services, when we know, it doesn't cost that much for the detail officer to begin with.
I'm not sure what the rate increases have been in the distant past. But I seem to remember at Town Meeting, they were around 1%. And as we know, it's not all the MWRA's increases, it's our own spending that makes more of the increases.
Lots of talk from the sub committee, just like in years past with the BOS. Will anything make a difference in the budget... time will tell, but if history is the judge, probably not.
I watched this entire meeting. We now have 4 District Councilors addressing the same issues we use to have over 200 town meeting members addressing. Everyone brings a different skill set to the table and I have to say other than Kink and Sisitsky, I am not sure the skill set for budgets is that strong on this sub-committee. No accountant, no CPA, and no financial planner on here. Town Meeting had all those people. We lost so much going to this smaller form of government. I like Judy Grove and I think her heart is in the right place but I don't need a councilor with a good heart, I need a councilor with a good brain and after seeing her spew so much bad information about pot I have to say I am not sure she has the good brain we need, but just my opinion
What is coming down the road is clearly that Framingham is not going to be affordable for the middle class or the fixed income. Since we are not a rich community, and since our homes are not all million dollar homes what are we all going to do when the mass exodus starts because people can not afford to live her anymore and our home sale prices take a hit because there are so many homes on the market buyers say why is everyone leaving? I am curious if anyone can tell us how many homes in Framingham were on the market say 2 years ago in October and how many were on the market in Oct. 2018. Might be an interesting number to track. Can you get that information Jim and share it here?
I read in the MERC newsletter, last year there were around 600 or so properties that turned over in housing. I'm betting that's been that way for a while now. Our hood is desirable for many reasons and the millennial's will have to wait a little longer before they bulldoze my places to build one big huge house. As the population grows so does the need for housing. And we are building 1000 plus apartments. The best we can hope for is that the City doesn't re-evaluate our places for what we can sell them for. That'll be the end of our ability to stay here.
Excellent points about the level of understanding. I would have asked A Hall and H Geller to be on a review board or the famous "Task Force" in conjunction with the Fin Com sub committee. I agree with the notion we had more review of the budgets. If they can't so no... to some things.. than what's the use of going through all that with Mary Ellen? I'm trying to see the benefits of our new way of governance...as Giombetti said, "quick and nimble" but this process of review makes me want Town Meeting back.
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