Town Budget: Some Ideas from the Chair

by Patrick White

Fact: every $90,000 spent translates to 1% in your taxes. I scoured the budget looking for ways to reduce the tax burden for all the town's taxpayers. Here are some highlights:

I proposed raising the room tax from 4% to 6% in 2021. Every dollar we get from tourists is a dollar less we need from property taxes. This one change netted an extra $200,000 this year alone!

I also advocated for raising local receipts from 80% to 85% in last year's recap. Savings: around $100,000.

I am proposing this year to use the money you already paid to pay off various loans such as town offices. This change alone reduces the budget by over $400,000, saving you 5% on next year's tax bills.

Then there's interest income. Our treasurer does a great job investing the $13 million you have in various town accounts. Interest rates have risen. The town's CDs are paying 4.25% and the budget should reflect that! Now it does and that's $90,000 that won't come from property taxes.

I reviewed this year's budget with our town administrator line for line, looking for more ways to save. The easy red flag is round numbers: those ending in ",000". Round numbers are plug numbers, rather than a number based on the prior year's actual spending. It's how you find the fat.

Finally, I've raised the question of Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB), which pays for former employees' health and dental. As the Finance Committee pointed out, it's basically 100% funded. In fact, the actuaries report that by 2052, we will have overfunded OPEB by $1.4 million. Our current OPEB annual liability is $139,000. Michael Canales and I will propose a policy to govern when to draw these funds from the millions you paid into OPEB, rather than from the general budget. Why should you be taxed again when your taxes already paid to fund it?

Together, these changes will reduce the burden on ALL taxpayers by at least 10%, saving an average of $500 per year. I've proposed a budget that will actually decrease compared to last year. All without any cuts in services, with employee raises including a bonus to help with inflation, and with a school budget that jumped over $200,000 this year.

Look, I am pretty good with numbers: I graduated with honors in Economics, got three venture-back start-ups funded, and currently serve as the chief financial officer of the Waldorf High School. Still, this takes hard work, but it's worth it to me.

You see, I know there are still a lot of people here living on a budget. Hopefully, these efforts will help make ends meet.

Editor's note: Subsequently, both the Select Board and Finance Committee affirmed much of the above.

Photo: Patrick White