The city may snatch $2.5 million or more from its rainy day fund this year to provide cash to keep the schools and City Hall operating smoothly without raising property taxes.
Finance Chairman Rich Miecznikowski said Wednesday that he supports using $2.5 million from the $17 million emergency fund to cover some of the spending that education and general government officials say they need.
He said he would tap $1.9 million for the schools and another $600,000 for city departments.
The Board of Education’s proposed $104.6 million spending plan requires $3.7 million in additional funding over this year’s level in order to maintain existing programs.
But with state aid level and city officials determined to hold the line on property taxes, it’s tough to see where all the money sought by the schools will come from.
Ron Messier, a finance board member who typically backs school spending requests to the hilt, said he doesn’t want to see property taxes rise by more than a quarter of a mill, a tiny increase.
Even that is probably not going to happen, though, because Mayor Art Ward and a number of other decision-makers, including Miecznikowski, have said they want to freeze property tax rates this year.
Messier said he supports taking cash out of the rainy day fund, but expressed astonishment that Miecznikowski was ready to use so much.
Miecznikowski said he hopes to hold the line on spending enough to keep taxes down without forcing layoffs.
Ward said he also aims to avoid layoffs, which would only exacerbate the struggling economy and crimp the city’s ability to carry out the work required.
School officials are searching for ways to stretch their dollars in the coming year.
Tom O’Brien, who heads the finance committee of the school board, said that negotiations are underway with every school employee union.
They are looking for ways to reduce costs and perhaps come up with an early retirement plan that might help as well.
The unions are open to ideas, O’Brien said, and something may come of it.
One possible avenue is to find ways to get more employees to give up their health insurance, perhaps by offering them cash to stay out of the plan, officials said. There are a number of workers who are married to someone who has insurance and double up merely to save on co-pays and the like.
O’Brien said the schools are also discussing the possibility of having retired school workers pay a portion of their health care costs, a policy change that might have an impact at City Hall, too.
The proposed school budget consists mostly of salaries, which make up 78 percent of the total tab. Salaries and benefits are going to rise $2.5 million in the next fiscal year, if the budget remains in place.
The only other significant increases over this year’s totals are in special education and transporting special education students, mandated items that are slated to go up by $2 million.
The rest of the school budget is actually slated to decrease by $760,000, due in large part to declining energy bills. But supplies and textbooks are also going to take a hit in the proposed spending plan.
At a hearing on the plan Wednesday, officials outlined the school system’s success in terms of test scores and graduation rates. They said they want to keep the current programs intact so they can build on that success.
Here is a link to a PDF of the proposed school budget.
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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
Showing posts with label rainy day fund. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rainy day fund. Show all posts
December 19, 2008
Finance board taps rainy day fund for $2.5 million
For the first time in many years, the city’s Board of Finance is tapping the rainy day fund to help hold property taxes down.
“We never touch that money,” said Finance Chairman Rich Miecznikowski. “We only use it for a unique opportunity or an emergency.”
“I consider this an emergency, he said. “Towns are drowning in this economy and we want to help the taxpayers swim.”
The city’s rainy day account – technically called its undesignated reserves – amounts to $17.9 million. That’s 10.5 percent of its annual budget, a healthy excess that few municipalities can match.
But the finance panel agreed to lower its threshold for the fund to 9 percent of the budget, freeing up $2.5 million for a special fund that can be tapped to pay for equipment and projects that would otherwise fall by the wayside.
City Comptroller Glenn Klocko said the money in the new sinking fund won’t be used for operational costs.
Klocko said that tapping the rainy day money for normal expenditures that are part of the annual spending plan would create a hole in the following year’s budget because there would no longer be reserves to use.
Using it for operational costs “would only exacerbate the problem” in subsequent years, Klocko said.
But relying on the excess to fund capital items – equipment and projects – would not have the same impact, Klocko said.
For example, Mayor Art Ward and Klocko have both said it is unlikely the city will pay for new police cruisers in the coming year because it is clamping down on spending
But it is possible the city might use money from the new sinking fund to pay for cars so that it can continue the normal replacement of aging cars.
The new fund “offers a way to pay for some items” that would otherwise have to be put off, Klocko said.
Miecznikowski said that using the excess reserves “is a first” in his long experience on the Board of Finance.
Financial experts urge towns and cities to put aside cash equal to between 5 and 10 percent of their annual spending in order to cover unusual opportunities or to help weather a crisis.
Bristol has chosen to remain on the flush end of the scale for many years in order to preserve is sold financial standing.
“Bristol is in an unparalleled position” because of its healthy rainy day fund, Klocko said, which gives officials options for dealing with the fiscal pinch that every municipality is facing because of the recession.
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
September 4, 2007
Candidates speak out on how to control spending
Most candidates for municipal office say the city should do a better job of setting spending priorities.
City Councilor Frank Nicastro, a Democrat, said the key to holding spending in check is for officials “to set priorities and stop jumping around from one issue to another.”
He said the city needs short, medium and long-term goals “and stick to it” instead of leaping around all the time.
Democratic mayoral nominee Ellen Zoppo said the city could save time and money with more effective planning. She called for the city to create a 10-year plan for projects in order to get a better handle on costs and taxes.
City Councilor Art Ward, who is aiming to upset Zoppo in Tuesday’s primary, said the way to “hold the line on spending” is to evaluate needs better and “responsibly assess the means of funding all initiatives with complete fiscal responsibility rather than fulfilling individual wish lists.”
Ken Cockayne, a Republican council candidate, said that he feels “very strongly” that the city has too much money socked away in its rainy day fund.
With taxes constantly rising, he said, “we have had a surplus in our budgets of over $6 million the last two years. In my opinion, a surplus like this means over-taxation. How big does our rainy day fund need to be?”
“We have citizens who are depleting their own rainy day funds for the city’s. This is unacceptable,” Cockayne said
“Bristol needs to be run more efficiently, like a private business,” said Joe Geladino, a Republican council hopeful.
Cockayne said that scaling back the budgets so that multi-million surpluses don’t happen is one way to hold down taxes. He also urged leaving some city jobs unfilled and eliminating others through attrition.
“If you can’t afford something either it gets cut or something else has to go, whether it’s a project, an expenditure, or head count, the way it’s done in most businesses,” Geladino said.
“The taxpayers are not an endless mill that can continue to grind out more and more money year after year,” Geladino said.
But Tom Ragaini, a former Democratic councilor who is running as an independent for a 2nd District council seat, said that over the years, the Democrats who have controlled City Hall since 1993 “have done a pretty good job” of holding down spending.
Ragaini said, though, that officials “have to go through our budget” and try to find ways to cut back on utility costs, hiring and projects.
“I’d plan to investigate opportunities for utilizing available technologies to improve operating efficiencies,” said Bob Merrick, a GOP council contender.
“When I chaired the Task Force on Government Efficiency, we went right to the employees on the front line of delivering services and received great suggestions on how to cut costs,” Zoppo said. “Maximizing and sharing resources has two benefits: increased efficiency and lower costs over the long run.”
Both city Councilors Craig Minor and Kevin McCauley, each of them Democrats seeking reelection, said the Board of Finance plays the key role.
“There is a tremendous amount of discussion and modifications during the budgetary process, always with the goal to arrive at a fiscally responsible budget,” McCauley said.
But Minor said that holding down spending isn’t the only issue.
“If we want to attract and retain the kind of families who will make the Bristol community one that we all want to live in, then we need to invest in quality of life issues,” Minor said.
Nicastro said that holding down property taxes depends on building up the tax base with more economic development. He said that attracting new businesses to town ought to be a top priority in order to spread the tax burden around more instead of hitting up homeowners.
Every major mayor and council candidate was given the chance to respond to the question of how they would hold the line on spending. Some did not answer. Others said they preferred not to comment.
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
City Councilor Frank Nicastro, a Democrat, said the key to holding spending in check is for officials “to set priorities and stop jumping around from one issue to another.”
He said the city needs short, medium and long-term goals “and stick to it” instead of leaping around all the time.
Democratic mayoral nominee Ellen Zoppo said the city could save time and money with more effective planning. She called for the city to create a 10-year plan for projects in order to get a better handle on costs and taxes.
City Councilor Art Ward, who is aiming to upset Zoppo in Tuesday’s primary, said the way to “hold the line on spending” is to evaluate needs better and “responsibly assess the means of funding all initiatives with complete fiscal responsibility rather than fulfilling individual wish lists.”
Ken Cockayne, a Republican council candidate, said that he feels “very strongly” that the city has too much money socked away in its rainy day fund.
With taxes constantly rising, he said, “we have had a surplus in our budgets of over $6 million the last two years. In my opinion, a surplus like this means over-taxation. How big does our rainy day fund need to be?”
“We have citizens who are depleting their own rainy day funds for the city’s. This is unacceptable,” Cockayne said
“Bristol needs to be run more efficiently, like a private business,” said Joe Geladino, a Republican council hopeful.
Cockayne said that scaling back the budgets so that multi-million surpluses don’t happen is one way to hold down taxes. He also urged leaving some city jobs unfilled and eliminating others through attrition.
“If you can’t afford something either it gets cut or something else has to go, whether it’s a project, an expenditure, or head count, the way it’s done in most businesses,” Geladino said.
“The taxpayers are not an endless mill that can continue to grind out more and more money year after year,” Geladino said.
But Tom Ragaini, a former Democratic councilor who is running as an independent for a 2nd District council seat, said that over the years, the Democrats who have controlled City Hall since 1993 “have done a pretty good job” of holding down spending.
Ragaini said, though, that officials “have to go through our budget” and try to find ways to cut back on utility costs, hiring and projects.
“I’d plan to investigate opportunities for utilizing available technologies to improve operating efficiencies,” said Bob Merrick, a GOP council contender.
“When I chaired the Task Force on Government Efficiency, we went right to the employees on the front line of delivering services and received great suggestions on how to cut costs,” Zoppo said. “Maximizing and sharing resources has two benefits: increased efficiency and lower costs over the long run.”
Both city Councilors Craig Minor and Kevin McCauley, each of them Democrats seeking reelection, said the Board of Finance plays the key role.
“There is a tremendous amount of discussion and modifications during the budgetary process, always with the goal to arrive at a fiscally responsible budget,” McCauley said.
But Minor said that holding down spending isn’t the only issue.
“If we want to attract and retain the kind of families who will make the Bristol community one that we all want to live in, then we need to invest in quality of life issues,” Minor said.
Nicastro said that holding down property taxes depends on building up the tax base with more economic development. He said that attracting new businesses to town ought to be a top priority in order to spread the tax burden around more instead of hitting up homeowners.
Every major mayor and council candidate was given the chance to respond to the question of how they would hold the line on spending. Some did not answer. Others said they preferred not to comment.
*******
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
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