Now that you are recovering from receiving your tax bill late last week, did you know that the City is already spending even more money beyond what was budgeted in June of this year?
“You mean, the City is coming after even more of my hard-earned money, I hear you ask?”
Yes.
This Budget Is Better Padded than a NE Patriots Guard
Tomorrow night at the December 4, 2023, City Council session, City Manager Karen Conard is going to ask for AN ADDITIONAL $450,000 to cover outside lawyers’ litigation fees! (#1 Supplemental Appropriation under City Managers comments). That’s a huge amount of money!
And what’s even more suspicious is that City Manager Conard and the City Attorney, Susan Morrell, already had a good sense of the scale and scope of litigation the City faces.
They knew this last winter and early spring that a place-keeper for the anticipated legal services should have been in the budget the City Council approved in June.
In Addition to the $890,000 in Supplemental Police and Fire Monies
Yes, this is the second time the City Manager is making an additional request for taxpayer dollars. The FY2024 budget passed in June included only a “contingency” for $563,000 for the Police and Fire union contracts, even though the previous year’s expense was known to be approximately $1.5 million.
But with the additional request for $890,000 added to the “contingency” $563,000, the negotiated pay package for the Police and Fire employees totals $1,453,000, remarkably close to the previous year’s budgeted amount.
So why present the lower “contingency” expense in the proposed FY2024 budget in June? Sure seems like staff wanted to avoid telling the Council and the taxpayer what the staff already knew: the FY2024 budget was going to be higher!
A Little Subterfuge Goes a Long Way
This “contingency” approach helped reduce the FY2024 budget numbers. It sure fooled the Councilors. But now reality hits the taxpayers, just like our tax bills hit last week.
