BRATTLEBORO-Selectboard members have asked Town Manager John Potter and his staff to go back to the drawing board and return scenarios that describe 5% and 10% reductions to the proposed nearly $26.5 million budget for the next fiscal year.
"I want to be clear with the public that a 22% increase in property taxes is extremely high, very hard to swallow, and, for many people, really, really concerning," said Board Chair Daniel Quipp of the current draft budget implication.
The budget process started with municipal staff creating a scenario that preserved all the services of the current financial year's spending plan ["Brattleboro warned about escalating costs," News, Nov. 13].
Instead of the board "trying to whittle it down" by making myriad small decisions line by line, Quipp suggested town staff members take another look, reduce the bottom line, and report back what the implications of each scenario are.
Then, he said, board members will "have some very hard conversations about what is palatable and what is not."
Concerns abound
At the Selectboard's Nov. 19 meeting, Potter noted that at a Nov. 12 budget informational open house at Brooks Memorial Library, around 40 attendees shared concerns about the draft budget, including those about the potential tax increase that would be needed and its impact.
Participants requested more explanation about such budget concerns as capital equipment and wage increases.
Quipp asked for "as few staff cuts as possible" in the two new budget scenarios and noted the Downtown Safety Action Plan should be preserved and the just-made trash decision [story, this issue] remain in both.
"I am not proposing at this point that that is a budget that we will be saying, 'Great, yep, send it to Town Meeting.' I'm saying we will have to have a close look at that and decide if that is something we'd like to do as a community," Quipp said.
Board member Elizabeth McLoughlin agreed, saying staff members know the vicissitudes of the budget best and that having both budget scenarios will offer the Selectboard the best understanding of how to proceed.
The elephant in the room
Board member Franz Reichsman noted that the spending increases that drive the budget up are recurring items, mainly solid waste disposal and the downtown safety initiative.
He also cautioned that making one-time cuts may accomplishes one-time savings, but many of those expenses will return - unfunded.
"If we try to save money on things we make go away for one year but then those things are back […] if we have one-time cuts, we're fooling ourselves if we think we're solving the problem," Reichsman said.
The only way to make long-term cuts in the town's budget would be staffing, he warned.
"Given that two-thirds expenses are on staff, I don't see how we can do that without cutting staff," he said. "And there's nothing cheerful in saying that."
"No one is guaranteed a job anywhere, except, it seems like, if you're working for the town of Brattleboro," former board member Dick DeGray told Selectboard members.
"You gotta play the cards that you have, and you got a bad hand. But you're making an assumption [that] people can't do the job in several areas, that we're going to fall apart," he said. "There are some staff that are not critical [or] essential for the well-being of the town."
He went on to say some board members were saying not to touch payroll expenses and that some were saying it's OK to do so.
"Don't sit there and say, 'Don't look there, don't look here' and put more pressure on other departments and areas because you're trying to preserve something and not be a bad guy," DeGray advised.
"I'm not advocating for staff cuts, but the reality is they have to be on the table and part of this. No sacred lambs(1)," he said.
"I don't think it's right, at this point, for you to take things off the table and say 'I'm not gonna support that.' You don't know what it means for the budget," said former board member Kate O'Connor.
"So I hope the town staff is going to look at everything […] we have to think long-term. We're going off a cliff. It's making me really worried. And I really hope that what town staff comes up with is something that you're willing to do, if it happens, because you know, it might happen."
"I think the work we're asking town staff to do is extremely difficult and will be very challenging and, if I'm being honest, will be demoralizing, and I don't take that lightly," said Quipp.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.