Town of Kent Budget

I wasted my time flapping my gums at the Public Hearing held tonight for the 2010 town budget.  There were 18 in the audience, including a couple of town employees and 4 Kent Fiscal Watch members.  I had my say and firmly believe that nobody listened.  For what it's worth, below are my remarks (I had to hurry the delivery, to fit into the 3 minutes allowed by the Supervisor):

"My name is Cliff Narbey.  I am a Kent resident and taxpayer.

I am a member of Kent Fiscal Watch, a non-partisan group that promotes transparency and fiscal responsibility in government.  It offers suggestions for ways to reduce spending while maintaining needed services.

This town board is to be commended for the improvement in fiscal management over the past 2 years.  In 2008, you achieved a surplus of $952,000 in the General Fund, over the previous administration’s budget.  In your budget for 2009 you planned a minor increase in taxes.  In this 2010 budget you reduce expenditures by 2%.

So it troubles me to come before you tonight and make some criticisms of your work.

You have publicly stated that you work hard on the budget and that you "do your homework".  Thus you know that Kent town taxes are almost $2 per $1,000 of property market value (mil. rate) higher than Patterson and Putnam Valley, towns that have the same assessment basis as Kent. You know that our mil. rate is 60% higher than theirs and that a Kent homeowner with a home valued at $300,000 pays almost $600 per year more in town tax than if that home was in Patterson or Putnam Valley.

You know that those neighboring towns spend less per resident than our town.

You know that the town of Fishkill, with a higher population (22,000), has a lower aggregate budget than Kent.

You know that the town of Patterson has passed a 2010 budget that reduces spending by 2.7%, after a 12% reduction in 2009.  The town of Southeast appears poised to pass a 2010 budget with reduced spending, after a 4% reduction in 2009.  I assume that, in doing your homework, you have analyzed and studied other towns’ budgets.

In my opinion, you have done a good "housekeeping" job, tidying up - but you have not addressed the deep-seated, structural spending habits of our town government, built up over decades.

You appear unwilling to utilize the powerful management tool of zero-based budgeting.  Properly implemented, this would enable you to review all of the services provided by the town, review the continued need for these and see any duplication.  You would review the resources needed to deliver these services and the optimal cost of these resources.

You would learn, for example, what the 4 full-time Kent police department’s detectives "detect" (at an aggregate cost of $½ million in salaries, benefits, use of vehicles and office space, continued training and education, etc.) and how many arrests they make in a year. [A board member corrected me – there are only 2 detectives, so my numbers are too high].

You would learn what the large number of highway workers’ aggregate hours produce – what they actually do.

You would learn why the municipal garage costs $621,000 per year – an average annual cost of over $7,000 per vehicle or piece of motorized equipment.  I note that you still do not recoup the entire cost of this garage from its users.

You appear unwilling to embrace consolidation of government services in a meaningful way.

You appear unwilling to use a purchase order system in order to control costs before they are incurred and appear before you as vouchers.

You appear unwilling to solve the case of police officers on town-paid disability for up to 2 decades.

You appear unwilling to address the rapid growth of post-retirement benefits that are non-contributory for the retirees (in this budget for $350,000).

You appear unwilling to address the extensive use of outside professionals (lawyers, engineers, human resource consultants, information technology consultants).

You appear to be unwilling to replace the Blackbaud bookkeeping software that is demonstrably not suitable for government (I believe that Kent is one of only 2 government users in all of America).

I respectfully ask you to consider my criticisms in the coming year.  I regret that Mr. Rohde will not be able to contribute to that and I salute his service, his sincerity and his independence.  I ask the Republican members to be true to the philosophy of their party – and not be "tax and spend" liberals."

The Town has now posted on its website its Annual Report to the NY State Comptroller for 2008 (see http://www.townofkentny.gov/PDF/Finance/annualfinancialreport2008.pdf).

An overall surplus of $647,054 (more revenue than expenditure) was achieved.

This adds to the Town's financial reserves, on top of a surplus of $1,201,464 in 2007.  As reported earlier, the brief financial summary of the First Quarter of 2009 showed an estimated (by me) surplus of $344,000.

The Town had $5,216,007 in cash and bank deposits at the end of 2008.

Taxpayers should be interested in why the Town is building up these surpluses, as the majority of its revenue comes from property taxes. 

In the details of the overall surplus for 2008, the General Fund (pays for everything except Highway Dept. and Capital Assets) had a surplus in 2008 of $1,269,662, compared to a 2007 surplus of $1,176,470 (in 2 years, that's $2.3 million of your taxes that were collected but not spent).  Offsetting this, the Highway Dept. had a deficit in 2008 of $315,451, compared to a deficit in 2007 of $148,005 (that's $463,000 more expenditures than was collected from your property taxes over 2 years).

These financial results certainly mean that the Town's finances are in very good shape.  The hang-over from the excessive cost overruns to build the Town Center has largely been cured.

So, why is the Town government piling up cash?  My personal opinion (you don't have to accept this) is that the Town is preparing to pay damages in the Kent Manor lawsuit, should the justice system ever award damages to the developer/plaintiff (there is no certainty of that).  Whatever the reason, it's taxpayers' money and I believe that they should be given an explanation. 

At this evening's Town Board meeting, the Supervisor presented an oral report on the Town's financial performance for the 3 months ended March 31, 2009.  There was no handout (and nothing yet on the Town website), so what follows is my hastily written notes taken as she spoke.  There was no opportunity given to the public to comment or ask questions.  Attendance was sparse (16 persons - 5 from Kent Fiscal Watch).

First, we should give praise to the Board for this additional innovation - a financial report to its constituents.  Much benefit can accrue to both the Board and to taxpayers if this practice becomes the norm and if additional disclosures are given.  This first report contained some information on how the Board is working to reduce spending; rationalise departments, programs and personnel; and consolidate services with other agencies.  This Board deserves credit for these actions and yet they seem reticent to broadcast their work.

Actual aggregate expenditures for the 3 months were $2,492,390, versus a budget of $2,856,122.  No revenue figures were given (most would be the full year's tax levy, collected in January), but these were said to be less than budget by some $19,000.  Thus the surplus of $344,732 (revenues down by $19,000 but expenditures down by $363,732).

The Supervisor quickly read a list of departments that were under budget for the quarter and I missed noting most of them.  However, Recreation was one and the Police another.  The Central Garage was noted as being overspent for the quarter, but this was explained by the purchase of inventory to be used later in the year and the payment of the full year's insurance in advance.

The Supervisor briefly mentioned that all departments were being audited by the Board and all will be considered for restructuring and elimination of unneccessary programs and/or expenditures at the completion of this audit.  She mentioned that replacement of staff, where occuring, was at lower salaries and that new non-union hires are now required to contribute 20% of their health insurance benefit cost, with the intention to negotiate with the unions for this measure when contracts come up for renewal.  Lower cost health insurance is being sought.  Vendors have been changed for LC Sanitation Special District and lower costs are constantly being sought for purchased goods and services.  Clerical staff in the Garage and Highway departments have been consolidated and reduced.  New revenue is being generated from the lease of the Town's ballfields.

We applaud this report and hope that detailed information will be put out to the public soon.

We also look for an early report on the results for the year ended December 31, 2008 - the annual report to the NY State Comptroller was not filed by the April 1 deadline and an extension to April 24 was requested.

Kent Fiscal Watch has monitored the Town of Kent’s budget process, and commented thereon, for the past three years.  We obtained a copy of Supervisor Doherty’s Tentative Budget for 2009, filed with the Town Clerk on September 30, 2008.  A number of our members reviewed this budget and Maryholt Maxwell, Joyce Mitchell and Cliff Narbey attended some or all (respectively) of the Budget Workshops, on October 23, 28 and 30 and November 3.

A. As we have noted before, the current Town Board is a more cohesive and workmanlike group. The budget review at the workshops was better and more thorough than in the previous two years.

The Tentative Budget, when amended by the changes detailed above and certain “tweaking” by the Town Accountant, becomes the Preliminary Budget.  The Town Board will hold a Public Hearing on the Preliminary Budget at 7 p.m. on Thursday, November 6.  We urge all taxpayers to come to that hearing.

New items saw a large increase in the Justice Court ($248,000), which will be more than offset by increased State rebates of fines and forfeited bail, a new item named Central Data Processing ($60,000), a new item called Grants To Participating Municipalities ($11,518).

This was originally posted on 11/06/2008 by Cliff Narbey