Township Meeting – October 19

No video up yet, and I’m not doing a general round up.  Maybe later.  I didn’t watch the whole thing.  In an entirely predictable manner, the supervisors sat quietly during public comments when people praised them, and interrupted constantly when challenged.  The selective courtesy is a hallmark of the Jekyll and Hyde behavior of these supervisors.

Last night’s big draw was public reaction to the budget, now that it’s had some time to circulate and sink in.

Streams of Gold

In a prior post, I referred to a guest opinion in the Courier Times.  The “cable franchise fee” was mentioned in that piece.  Looking into that a bit, I found that it’s neither a fee or a tax; it’s rent!

Apparently it has something to do with the Cable Communications Act (1984), which was supposed to ensure that the powers between cable operators and governments would be balanced.  Weren’t you worried about that!  Government bodies are allowed to issue franchise licenses to cable companies; the fee doesn’t have to be passed on to the consumer, but I pay an extra 5 bucks a month on my Comcast bill for a “cable franchise fee”.

You Won’t Feel a Thing

I’ve avoided posting about the budget presented at last night’s meeting because I don’t think the prelim 2012 budget is up on the website yet.

Okay, that’s a half-truth.  The other is that the proposed budget is depressing.

The General Fund shows a deficit of just over half a million dollars.  Like the past, it is always with us.

Depressing as the deficit is, there’s worse.  A mil of tax is being diverted from open space funding to the general fund, and a half-mil is coming back to us.  Technically it’s a matter of cutting the open fund mils by one and a half and raising property tax by 1, but in the end it’s the same.

I always assumed that the open space levies would come back entirely to us, so I certainly made an ass of me.

The thing is, there’s still 9.2525 mils going to open space.  Changing my prior assumption, I guess that could all be up for grabs by the township.  Will we ever get those mils back?  Maybe like this:

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In funding open space, we may never see that money again, long after the open space plan has ended.  We’re paying it anyway, right?  Pay for this or pay for that; no harm, no foul.  Just keep saying it.

In a year of yet another significant deficit, even with grabbing another mil (about $230,000) which will likely be permanent, why even talk about giving a half mil back?  Seems like just yesterday Rattigan was talking about how a 1 mil increase would be no big deal to a township of fat cats like ours.  What changed?

Oh yeah, the election.

In this news story, Guy Polhemus calls this move a shell game.  I disagree.  I call it a sucker punch.

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A More-or-Less Permanent Union

A good opinion piece in Mondays Courier-Times.

On June 15, the Upper Makefield board of supervisors meeting featured a presentation by the township manager, Stephanie Teoli, describing how the cost of privatizing the remaining four Department of Public Works unionized workers would cost considerably more than leaving them as township hires.

At the conclusion of the presentation, the supervisors stared in rapt attention, and supervisor Dan Rattigan pronounced it a“no-brainer”. They then moved on to the next order of business: signing the three-year union contract for those four employees, with pay increases for all.

Read the whole thing.  The last line is spot on.  Remember also that the police contract is coming up and may in fact be in progress.  Will anyone be representing the residents at those negotiations?  Anyone?

Budget Sweatshop

So the first budget workshop of 2011 was held last Wednesday.  How often have the supervisors talked about the value of attending budget workshop sessions?  Answer: lots.

If you’ve ever been – there’s that one person Rattigan referred to who attended at some point in the last 5 years, so you’re out there somewhere – you know the drill.

If you haven’t, here’s some skinny.

You, as a resident funding the township operation, will be given nothing to look at.  For the price of admission – 2+ hours in a chilly room in a building with a busted water fountain – you’ll get to squint at the TV screen hooked up to a laptop, to stare at numbers and try to follow the discussion.

Supervisors and township employees shuffle papers and talk about this line item and that one.  Really, it’s not unlike the regular township meetings, where supervisors have all kinds of info while those paying for it stare at their own empty hands.

The water in the township building contains arsenic.  Hmm, maybe that’s why the fountain stays broken.  Cut repair expenses and better serve the residents!

Questions from the public are not permitted.  There was something begging for an answer in the pre-pre-preliminary budget, but when one person wanted to ask, Bud Baldwin swiveled about, flung out his hand, and barked “no questions!”.  There is so much venom in this man that he could be our very own super-villain.  It’s difficult to understand why he chooses to behave this way, or why the other supervisors choose to remain silent.

Maybe Bud drinks the township building’s water.

No tax cut shown at this meeting.  RAT-again and Ryan seemed a tad vexed.  The election’s coming up, the flyers are printed, better hurry!

Next meeting is Monday, Sept. 26, at 6 PM.  The earlier starting time means it will be long.  And the means to the promised tax cut should be revealed!

If you plan to attend, don’t sit too close to Bud.  And bring your own drink.

Where’s the Date? (Updated)

There are 2 Upper Makefield budget meetings scheduled at this time.  These were announced at the last township meeting on September 7.

The first is scheduled for tomorrow, Sept. 14, at 7 PM.  The second is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 26, at 6 PM.

I felt motivated to put this post up because there’s nothing about the meetings on the township website.  Not on the home page, the news, the news archives, or the finance page.  Heck, they’re not even on the township calendar!

Dan RATtigan says only one person has ever attended in the past 5 years.

Well, maybe if they put something up about the meetings more people would know!

There are a million ways to be stupid, but it shouldn’t be a feature.

So come out, if you can.  Call first if you want the township to confirm the dates and times.

215-968-3340.

Or send an email.  info@uppermakefield.org

Update – the township calendar has been updated to show the budget meetings

Town Without Pity

In my last post I went through the township budgets for 2008-2011, to demonstrate that the budget numbers proposed have been outlandish, and that actual expenses have never really been cut.

In this post I want to go back to November and December of 2009, when the preliminary 2010 budget was presented, and the one mil tax increase was proposed and passed.

At that point in time the board consisted of Dan Rattigan (chair), Bud Baldwin, Dave Kulig, Bob West, and Dan Worden, and it was clearly a divided board.  West and Worden opposed a tax increase; the others, not so much.

On November 4, 2009, the preliminary 2010 budget was presented.  There was a lot of talk about falling revenues, increased expenses, cost-cutting actions taken.  By then the supervisors had cottoned to the fact that the year-end deficit was not going to be the $2.779 million dollars originally anticipated (including the Gateway grant), but it would instead be closer to $850,000.  There was a chart showing how cash reserves had been used to balance the budget for years.

Here I just want to insert a note about the cash reserves.  There must be other things hitting those reserves, things not shown in the budget.  During this presentation the 2009 beginning year fund balance was shown as $2.581 million.  The 2009 outside auditor’s report dated July of 2010, available here, shows a 2009 beginning fund balance of $3.127 million.  That’s nearly a half-million dollar difference.

The tax increase was proposed to make up an anticipated shortfall in the reserves.  The point was made that at the beginning of any year, money is needed to carry the township for some months until new tax receipts start coming in.  The recommended reserve balance was about $600,000, and based on the projection for the remainder of 2009 and the proposed 2010 budget, the cash reserves would fall to about $50,000 by the start of 2011.

(That’s according to the township presentation.  My numbers don’t show that, but that slippery cash reserve balance won’t stay put!)

I have a problem with this “save the cash reserves and we’re okay” approach.  While the claim was made that a “scalpel” was used on the preliminary 2010 budget, “again and again and again”, budgeted 2010 expenses were $6.045 million, or $445,000 more than actual 2009 expenses of $5.6 million (adjusted for the Gateway grant).  The scalpel looks more like a spoon, adding to the dish rather than cutting away.

At the same time, the 2010 anticipated revenue total without the tax increase would have been about $4.534 million, up only $134,000 from the 2009 actual revenues of about $4.4 million (adjusted again for the Gateway grant).

The time when a tax increase was proposed would have been an excellent time to point out that deficit budgeting, which had already drawn down cash reserves, would only continue to do so in the future.

And we know exactly what happened.  Because, like “deja vu all over again”, on November 3, 2010, the board announced that the cash reserve fund would be in jeopardy at the start of 2012, and another tax increase – this time a 3 mil one – was proposed.

You might argue that you take things a year at a time.  The economy could get better, revenues could go up.  But you play the hand you’re dealt, not the wishful thinking in your mind.  If revenues have been going down for 3 straight years, and all national economic indicators suggest that a rebound is not on the immediate horizon, when do you get serious about real cuts to expenses?

That 2010 “scalpel” wasn’t applied to expenses at all.  Dollars out the door stayed the same in 2008, 2009, and 2010.  The 2010 “scalpel” was applied to whatever budget was originally suggested in September/October of 2009, and result was “only” a $445,000 budgeted increase in expenses over 2009.  The 2009 kabuki replays in 2010.  Actual expenses in 2010 were about $5.661 million, and budgeted 2011 expenses at that time were about $5.986 million, “only” a $325,000 dollar increase, an amount larger than the prior year’s tax increase.  And that proposed 2011 budget, with an assumed 3 mil tax increase, wasn’t balanced.

Even with multiple tax increases on the table, the deficits march on.

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This… Budget… Won’t… BUDGE!

On November 8, 2011 (that’s Election Day), 3 Upper Makefield supervisor seats will be up for vote.

A hot issue, I suspect, will be the township’s finances.  There was a one mil tax increase in 2009 for 2010, which was voted on and passed by the supervisors.  There was a 3 mil tax increase proposed in 2010 for 2011, but that one failed, mostly because residents turned out en masse to protest.  Instead, it was agreed that the cable fund (something over $700K) would be transferred to the General Fund.

I believe that the 2009 tax increase, and the proposed 2010 increase, fueled the Republican primary upset in May, putting Larry Breeden, Ernest Sasso, and Guy Polhemus on the Republican ballot.

I’m glad.

(It also caused RATtigan to get into a major snit and take his toys over to the Dems.  And it caused KC Christian to flutter to the left, cooing “I loooooove me some Democrats”).

Anyway, I think the time has come to take a closer look at the township budgets, and attempt to answer these questions:

Questions

1. How have the supervisors done with the budgeting over the last few years?
2. How have the supervisors managed deficits over the last few years?
3. How have the supervisors done controlling expenses over the last few years?

Answers

1. Suck-y
2. Suck-y
3. Double-plus suck-y

Now for the part where I back this up.

My premises are two, and they are simple.

First, how you perform against your budget means nothing if your budget is crap.

Second, you’re not cutting expenses if your expenses remain about the same every year.

On the township website is the ‘final 2011’ proposed budget in .pdf form.  You can get it here, but I wouldn’t bother.  The final 2010 actuals are not filled in, and the beginning and ending cash balances are all weird and wrong.

The documents I’ll be referring to are the preliminary 2011 budget that was available to residents last fall (and you can get it here); the 2008 budget vs. actuals document from the township (available here); the 2009 budget vs. actuals document from the township (available here); and the 2010 budget vs. actuals document from the township (available here).

The reason I go back to 2007 is because 2007 is the last year that Upper Makefield had a balanced budget.  So let’s start there.

But first, let me say this.  The 2007, 2008, and 2009 General Fund budgets contain 2 expense line items and 1 revenue line item that I strongly feel do not belong there.  These belong to the Gateway grant for the Washington Crossing Streetscape project.  This is a multi-year grant with a fixed purpose, and that purpose is not to fund the township’s operating costs.  These line items obscure some relevant patterns of expense.  So I removed these from the revenue and expense totals.

In 2007, adjusting both totals down by $100,000 for the Gateway grant, actual incoming revenues for the township’s General Fund totalled about 5.8 million, and actual expenses totalled about 5.8 million.

Yay!

Now let’s look at 2008.  In that year, total budgeted expenses were just over 10 million dollars (adjusting down $2 million for the Gateway grant).

You read that right.  In 2008 the supervisors actually thought expenses would increase more than 4 million dollars – more than 70%! – over what was actually spent in 2007.

And what did they end up spending in 2008?  About 5.6 million (adjusting down $1.8 million for the Gateway grant).

2009: total budgeted expense, adjusting down $217,000 for the grant, was about 7.8 million, almost a 40% increase over 2008 actuals.  Actual 2009 expense, adjusting down $200,000 for the grant, was about 5.6 million.

There’s that number again!

2010: total budgeted expense (the grant is now gone) was about 6 million, pretty close to the 2007 budget (but without the 2007 revenue).  Actual 2010 expenditures… wait for it… about 5.6 million.

What is it with that number???

Why doesn’t it ever move?

Lets compare actual revenues to expenses for the years 2007 – 2010 (adjusted for the streetscape grant):

2007 revenues 5.8 million vs 2008 revenues 4.6 million: down 20.6%

2007 expenses 5.8 million vs 2008 expenses 5.6 million: down 3.5%

2008 revenues 4.6 million vs 2009 revenues 4.4 million: down 4.3%

2008 expenses 5.6 million vs 2009 expenses 5.6 million: no change

2009 revenues 4.4 million vs 2010 revenues 5 million: up 13.6% (and don’t forget that includes the 2010 tax increase!)

2009 expenses 5.6 million vs 2010 expenses 5.6 million: no change

Since 2007, township General Fund revenues have dropped nearly 14 percent.  Expenses since 2008: no change at all.

If you’re serious about cutting expenses, your budget will be something less than the actual expenses of the prior year, barring known one-time experiences or upcoming events.  This hasn’t been happening in Upper Makefield since 2008.  Budgets have been wildly out of line with prior years, and with the actual experience.

And expenses, in total, haven’t moved an inch.

Why would someone propose such bizarre budgets?  I have 3 ideas:

1. They don’t know what they’re doing
2. They want to push for a tax increase
3. They want to look like they’re holding the line at costs, so they inflate anticipated costs

In 2008, the deficit looked like it would be nearly 5.3 million.  In fact it was about 863,000.

In 2009 the deficit looked like it would be nearly 2.8 million.  In fact it was about 764,000.

In 2010, the year of the one mil tax increase, the deficit looked like it would be nearly 1.3 million.  In fact it was about 682,000.

That’s just sick.

And how does 2011 look?  Budgeted expenses totalling nearly 5.9 million, pretty close to the actual experience of 2007 (albeit with some $300,000 less in expected revenue, even with the Cable Fund money).  Anticipated deficit of nearly 382,000.

Let’s hope the final actual expense number for 2011 is somewhere south of 5.6 million.

I think I’ve made my case.

Rattigan? Not THAT again!

That’s my campaign slogan for Dan Rattigan, one of them, at least.  Free of charge!  Sign it and spread it around!

Or maybe he could say everytime the voters vote me out, I find a way to drag myself in.

Why would someone do a party hop?  Because Dan got his panties in a wad when he was knocked out of the ring in the Republican primary last May.  If he has to high tail it to another party to get on the ballot to stay in the running, he will hike his butt anywhere.  Disgusting.

Democrats deserve him.  Rattigan’s record is one of raising or wanting to raise taxes (2009 up 1 mil, 2010 wanted another 2-3 mil increase) so he can SPEND it.  And he says he’s running on tax cuts?

Pay attention, folks.  The Upper Makefield budget has been in deficit since 2008.  Spending less than you anticipated in any given year doesn’t mean you’ve filled the
hole, and these supervisors haven’t.  The actual 2010 deficit was nearly one million dollars.  The budget is on the Upper Makefield township website (look under Government / Departments / Finance), but this new online version leaves off the line: Revenues Exclusive of Cash vs. Expenditures.  That’s what I have in my printed version, and that’s where you see the scary annual deficits.

So you’ll have to do the math yourself.

Subtract Total Expenditures from Revenues Exclusive of Beginning Cash.  For 2010, that would be an income of $4,870,333 minus expenses of $5,862,866. That year’s revenues includes the 1 mil tax increase. Deficits are made up from the cash reserves  (aka Beginning Cash), which are shrinking fast.  2008 deficit: $863,310.  2009 deficit: $573,287.  There was no concerted effort to cut expenses in 2009; the streetscape grant and expenses, which should never have been in the general fund, distort the figures over these 2 years.

Rattigan and Ryan saying they are cutting expenses is EXACTLY like the lady who owes $30K on her credit card, has no job, and reluctantly agrees to a less expensive granite for her kitchen remodel project.  Hey, she’s saving money!

Anybody awake out there?

Send this loser RATtigan down the Delaware, along with Cryin’ Ryan.

My other campaign slogan: Not Dan RAT again!  Take your pick!