To The Daily Sun,
Many years ago the Capital Improvement Plan was established to replace/purchase large budget items for the town. (Fire trucks, graders, dump trucks, etc.) Monies were voted on yearly and added to capital reserve funds and it was agreed that 90% of the purchase price would be in the capital reserve account before a purchase was made. Why not this year?
Fast forward to this year. A precedent is about to be set in spending from the taxpayers account (a.k.a. unassigned fund account) to buy a firetruck rather than giving that money back to us in the way of a buy down on the tax rate.
The Unassigned Fund is where the selectboard/Budget Committee propose to take over $500,000 dollars, for the purchase price of over $800,000. This fund has approximately $2.8 million in it. How has it been allowed to grow to this magnitude without giving it back to us, the taxpayers? By giving it back to us, what I mean is that the selectboard could vote to buy down our tax rate which would greatly decrease what we have to pay in taxes for one year.
Historically, the selectboard never allowed this account to grow like this as they would use it to help the taxpayers. The money in that account accumulates when the town has unanticipated revenues or unexpended money from the operating budget. A recommendation from the Department of Revenue is that a town should keep 5% of their operating budget in the unassigned fund. Money over that amount should be given back to the taxpayers and the selectboard/Budget Committee are not doing that.
Wouldn’t you like a year without high taxes? The only way you can have that is if you vote no on article 4. I’m certainly not against replacing a firetruck, but I am definitely against using the taxpayers savings account to do so. I’m sure the chief would agree that we could postpone the purchase until the capital reserve account or bonding can be used to replace it.
Help your neighbors with a tax break. Vote no on article 4 and next year maybe $2 million could be used to give us a huge decrease on our tax bill.
Brenda Currier
Gilmanton
(1) comment
Hypocrisy at its best
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