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Health & Fitness

NOXIOUS FUMES:

Something smells bad at Town Hall!

    Wouldn’t it be great if the news from Town Hall trumpeted that they are managing to reduce our tax rate, fees and water and sewage rates!  Dream on ... each year we begin with the 2½ CAP and with the excluded debt in excess of another 2½%  in any budget discussion.  And we are told this still nets a $700,000+ projected tax dollar deficit!  Stop playing games ... the deficit is more than $1.5 million over this year!  And playing with non-appropriated surplus funds to meet costs without ANY taxpayer approval is more than dishonest!  We keep hearing of the $4.25 million reserved by town hall for the Town Taj Mahal project; applying these funds to the library bond issue can reduce annual costs by $200,000.
    The $4.25 million in and of itself is most interesting ... Town Meeting approved some $19 million to do a very specific list of identified work to renovate the High School.  The Building Committee minutes note in April ‘10, that when the bids were received, the bidding and construction contingency fund grew from $1.1 to over $6 million dollars for the specific identified work.  This $6 million “surplus” (use of this term is by the town manager October report) has largely been spent WITHOUT FURTHER TAXPAYER APPROVAL by the boards involved.  It could have been utilized to meet most of the cost of the Library Bond issue!  to the tune of a savings of $450,000 per year for 20 years.  Instead we are saving an unknown figure, somewhere between zero and $1.7 million, to avoid the inevitable taxpayer ballot question on the Town Taj Mahal!
    Instead we read in the manager’s October report that they are beginning the FY’13 fee analysis so that the fees “are never allowed to fall so far below actual cost to provide the service.”  Question, haven’t we already paid for these services currently in the budget with salaries, offices and benefits?  Just because we ask for something, we must now PAY a second time!  Perhaps a townee/out of townee discrimination should be developed!  And let’s not forget the fee business in it’s totality ... is the request for service merely an item in a current file which must be available for inspection by statute without a fee, or is it a 1828 birth certificate buried somewhere in the vault?  Or a passport filing?
    We have been told we have increased the ambulance charge to match surrounding towns as it does not cost the taxpayer anything; the insurance carrier pays it!  And this will pay for the ambulance and other vehicle replacements!  WHO PAYS THE INSURANCE COMPANY?  Why doesn’t Town Hall in it’s wisdom repeating its reminder to regionalize several operations including veterans, a town engineer and others, regionalize a system of negotiations with the town's and insurance companies to reduce this charge, which would be reflected in the taxpayer’s insurance bill?  We negotiated co-pay changes, etc., saving both tax dollars and costs to the employee, why not the ambulance?
    Headlines include both the gaming issue as well as the 40% increase in drunk driving arrests.  Is there or can there be a relationship ... gaming is not here - yet -!  But the expansion of facilities on route 1 has been significant.  And if one wants to see Vegas and Atlantic City here, one must accept the collateral damage.  Begin to imagine the coverage necessary for a 24/7 activity.  We now have a Sargent plus 2 minimum over night!  To cover the entire Town!  I have suggested making Foxboro a “gated community”! (sarcasm intended).  But we would only be inviting serious issues with our neighbors such as the sign and RR station have already stirred.
    And the noise on the MIAA is unusual ... lets all remember that the manager is but the “agent’ of the Selectmen ... when a decision is made by the selectmen in their capacity as rendering “the executive powers of the town” this should end the open discussion.  It hasn’t!
    One columnist has noted “change” and “action” as highlights of the manager’s regime.  I can certainly agree ... but when he ignores statutes (chapter 44), by-laws (article IX sec E) and legitimate requests for information filed pursuant to Chap 66 section 10, I begin to differ most strongly.  Chapter 44 requires the vote of the Ad Com to approve a snow and ice transfer ... this never occurred!  And the official number of this item is different by some $70,000 between the finance director and the manager???  How do we manage the overtime overage in several accounts ... again by unappropriated transfers.  We legitimately transfer some $105,000 a year from our reserve account ... through the AdCom.  The Police Chief notes annually a $550,000 plus overtime expenditure each year to AdCom.  The annual warrant number for this item is roughly $400,000 ... this is but one department ... how is this arranged, by whom, under what authority representing the taxpayer ... the People’s Business!  And why not apply the other grants, permits, fines, reimbursements to this account, to reduce the appropriated numbers?  The Chief has previously reported sums in the annual reports exceeding $300,000 for fines, etc, and $200,000 for grants, yet the expended numbers do not seem to decrease!
    By-law Article IX requires two taxpayer, non-employee members to be a part of employee contract negotiations.  Instead, we have town employees negotiating a town employee contract with town employees.  In other words, Krushev sitting on both sides of the table on the arms control negotiations ...!  Kevin reported that the wage board did not have the time to meet, especially as he added the meetings were in the afternoon.  Nearly all citizen volunteers have to work for a living to pay their tax bill, is this the result!
    Requests for information on town records are answered by saying in general that no record exists in the format requested, or that compiling the material will take many hours and a large fee must be charged.  One needs to have the secret word or handshake to enter the files to inspect them per statute.  One request for the existing and new fee charges indicated that no record exists, and to devise one will incur cost!  Can someone describe how each department operates without a printed schedule?  Or do they merely look through the window to see how new the patron's car is before listing a fee?
    Each savings or revenue increase has been sold as necessary to balance the budget after the insertion of the Cap ... it is never to reduce the TAX RATE!  Let’s reduce the tax rate by increasing all user fees, water, sewer, bussing, athletics, plowing and so on ... maybe we can even add a charge for the air we breathe as well!!!

Dick Heydecker - 508-543-9412

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