Welcome to the second offshoot from ConChrist!
As most of you know, I'm from Franklin, NH. It's a nice enough city, albeit a little barren these days. One of the benefits of living in Franklin is that the city has a tax cap. For those of you who don't know what that is, a tax cap means that the city can not raise taxes above the cost of living. It's been in place for the past 20 years. Until this year.
Last Monday, the city councilors voted to ignore the tax cap in order to correct a revenue mistake -- the projected amount of money wasn't coming in. So in order to correct the mistake, instead of cutting the budget to make up for the shortfall, they decided to break the cap for the first time in 20 years.
At this point this rests fully on the shoulders of the city councilmen who voted for this -- the only ones on the panel that night that voted against it were Ward 2 councilor Glen Feener (my councilor), and Mayor Ken Merrifield, who vetoed the budget twice, and even tried to offer solutions to avoid the cap being broken.
One of the items they decided to cut: money to the Community Action Program, which runs most of the assistance programs in the city, which is where my husband and I go for WIC, food pantry, and fuel assistance. (considering that Franklin currently has one of the highest unemployment rates in the city right now, wouldn't it be a good idea to fund THAT program?) Another program they cut funds to: Franklin Business Industrial and Development Corporation, which is in charge of bringing businesses in to Franklin.
What they didn't cut: 10 computer workstations, totaling $23,000. The first payment on a mandatory $850,000 recycling center for the city over 7 years. Four vacant positions for $316,000. An office cleaning contract for $80,000.
And I don't even know currently what's in the school budget, but judging from this it's scary.
Anyway, the point of this separate blog is to dissect issues within Franklin. Right now it's how it pertains to the budget, but also other matters as they come up that are of importance to the city. Because a TEA Party isn't all about taxes. It's about smart budgeting, and knowing where to spend the money where it's needed and hold off on things that aren't.
Believe me, I will be keeping a closer eye on this.
If I may I would like to clarify some of the items you mentioned in your WELCOME July 14,2009 entry.
ReplyDelete1. You stated "...instead of cutting the budget to make up for the shortfall, they decided to break the cap for the first time in 20 years..." The deficit was $1,100,000 this year so we did make cuts to the budget totaling over $650,000.
2. You stated "...At this point this rests fully on the shoulders of the city councilmen who voted for this -- the only ones on the panel that night that voted against it were Ward 2 councilor Glen Feener (my councilor), and Mayor Ken Merrifield, who vetoed the budget twice, and even tried to offer solutions to avoid the cap being broken..." Both Councilor Glen Feener and Mayor Ken Merrifield did not support the exemption to the tax cap but both supported either increased fees and/or brand new fees throughout the city. Many were increased over 200%. What kind of solution is that to increase some to avoid others?
3. You stated "... One of the items they decided to cut: money to the Community Action Program, which runs most of the assistance programs in the city, which is where my husband and I go for WIC, food pantry, and fuel assistance. (considering that Franklin currently has one of the highest unemployment rates in the city right now, wouldn't it be a good idea to fund THAT program?)..." I was the only councilor that voted not to cut money to the Community Action Program for the very same reasons you stated. Councilor Glenn Feener and Mayor Ken Merrifield strongly favored cutting funds to CAP and even supported not renewing their lease to the building they are in.
4. You also stated "...Another program they cut funds to: Franklin Business Industrial and Development Corporation, which is in charge of bringing businesses in to Franklin..." I voted NO to cutting these funds although the FBIDC has not been as successful as we would all hope. Eventually we were able to reverse a few of those YES votes and return some of the funding for them.
Thank you for allowing me to address these issues and please feel free to respond and/or contact me anytime to discuss this or any topic.
Sincerely,
Gerald LeBlanc
Ward III Councilor