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| Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet A sight that wouldn’t be seen at a City Council Meetings ten years ago — smart phones. Doug Morrell is shown here using his device to take a video of the councilors discussion the 2013 expense and capital expense budget. Morrell was one of over 40 community members who packed into the Councilor’s Chambers during the Dec. 10 meeting. |
By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — The Caribou City Council approved the 2013 expense and capital expense budget at $9,307,207 — a spending package that exceeded the approved 2012 budget of $8,958,824.
Councilor Gary Aiken — who opposed passing the budget along with Councilor Philip MacDonough — told the board that by his figures, the city will be looking at a 10 percent tax increase should the budget pass as-is.
Per the new charter, the council has to approve the 2013 expense and capital expense budget by Friday, Dec. 14; the date stipulated in the charter, Dec. 15, falls on a Saturday this calendar year.
Councilor MacDonough made a motion for the council to continue working toward trimming the budget until Friday, mentioning that that he didn’t think it would take more than one meeting to fix the budget.
Despite the idea’s support from Councilors Aiken and Joan Theriault in addition to expressed support by Superintendent of the Parks and Recreation Department Kathy Mazzuchelli, who spoke on behalf of the department heads and laid out a tentative schedule to solidify cuts in the next few days, the motion failed.
“If we’re not going to meet again, if we’re not going to get together and we’re not going to work on [the budget] some more, we have to adopt it,” Theriault said, and expressed her resolve to uphold the charter’s deadline. She also cautioned against a budget that resulted in higher taxes.
“If we don’t cut something, we’re going to have a big tax increase and I’m tell you, there’s a whole other side of town that’s going to be mad,” she said.
Councilor David Martin drew the parallel that waiting until the last minute to pass the budget sounded like Congress.
The expense budget and capital expense budgets cannot be raised any higher, now that the council has passed the budget at $9.3 million, though the councilors can still lower the budgets right up until they set the tax rate on or before June 30, 2013.
To flat fund the budget (stick to last year’s expense) the council would need to cut roughly $350,000 from the budget; the council was given a list by City Manager Austin Bleess that was comprised mostly of proposed cuts discussed during their Dec. 5 workshop. Martin read the two-page list aloud, and Bleess explained why the suggested cuts were on different pages.
“To be quite up front with the council, I would say that the cuts on page 40 are the easy cuts; the cuts on page 41 are the not-so-easy cuts,” he said. Going through the list, Bleess suggested the council make few cuts that would bring them to a flat-funded budget; the council did not decrease any of the expenditures before passing the budget.
The “easy cuts,” as discussed during the workshop included:
• $31,422 from the Chamber of Commerce (everything but salary and health insurance);
• $500 from general assistance, legal fees;
• $90,079 from “Protection” for ambulance services — which the council explained wasn’t really a “cut” because the city was paying itself;
• $4,000 from emergency management for CEM rent — where the city was paying itself rent for building use;
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| Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet Caribou City Mayor Kenneth Murchison shakes the hand of outgoing Councilor John Boone, as Boone was ceremoniously presented with his official Council nameplate. |
• $26,884 from recreation for the swimming pool, meaning the pool would not be open in 2013;
• $2,500 from insurance and retirement for recognitions and awards;
• $20,000 from Capital Improvement Accounts for public works equipment reserves;
• 20,000 from the Capital Improvement Accounts for ambulance reserves;
• $5,000 from the Capital Improvement Accounts for the fire department equipment reserves;
• $2,000 from the Capital Improvement Accounts for the community pool;
• $3,700 from the Capital Improvement Accounts for accessing Trio Software;
• $5,000 from the Capital Improvement Accounts for the parking lot reserve;
• $900 from the Capital Improvement Accounts for the library computer reserve;
• $3,000 from the Capital Improvement Accounts for parks improvement; and
• $2,000 from the Capital Improvement Accounts for civic beautification.
The “not-so-easy cuts,” as discussed by the council, included:
• $83,736 from the general government account for the newly created (and currently vacant) position of assistant city manager;
• $21,060 from municipal buildings for janitorial services and, instead, city staff would be asked to perform janitorial functions;
• $1,500 from the tax assessment account, cutting salaries for the Board of Assessors;
• $500 from tax assessment for legal fees;
• $19,355 from the library for the currently vacant job of library assistant;
• $5,000 from the library for books and magazines;
• $18,801 from the Nylander Museum — which is the entire budget. The building would be theoretically closed and winterized;
• $4,051 from the fire department for janitorial services, and have the staff perform janitorial duties;
• $15,000 from the ambulance department, which disallows full-time status for the secretary as previously discussed by the council;
• $8,000 from the police department for overtime, with the intent that if the city has a retirement/resignation, they can cut overtime by filling that vacancy with an academy trained individual;
• $80,082 from the recreation department, by cutting various programs;
• $14,475 from the parks department, by not filling a vacancy for a janitor;
• $6,000 from cemeteries, by only donating $100 to each cemetery;
• $15,000 from insurance and retirement, by cutting uncompensated absences;
• $335,332 from Capital Improvements Accounts, by cutting all or parts of various projects;
• $83,040 from employee contingency costs, which would mean that no raises are given for city employees. The city does, however, still have to negotiate contracts for city employees in three unions;
• $44,205 from various accounts for heating oil, as the figure is the projected savings based upon the new boilers that have yet to be installed.
Aiken was not quiet about his feelings regarding the council’s effort on the budget.
“I don’t think we’ve done a very good job with it,” he said. “We all have made commitments that we wanted to not increase the expense budget this year, and I think we’ve had the opportunities to work on that, but we just haven’t got the job done.”
City Mayor Kenneth Murchison clarified that he was focused on not increasing the mil rate — meaning the budget in its entirety, not just the expense portion. Aiken agreed that the board was all interested in the mil rate.
Aiken expressed toward the beginning of the budget dialogue that while he wasn’t in favor of passing the budget, he was sure it was going to pass anyway.
“I just hope the commitment is there to continue working on it, and I don’t mean working on it in June — I mean working on it in January,” he said.
After the council voted in favor of passing the 2013 expense budget without making cuts, a good portion of those in attendance vacated the councilors chambers.
The council’s discussion of the budget during the meeting occupied approximately 20 minutes of the two-hour meeting. An additional story on the Dec. 10 City Council meetings will appear in next week’s issue of the Aroostook Republican.
