Budget Reaction
We simply could not let this one go. Recently, Mr. Reilly of the Stratford Star took to writing this piece: Imagine: $1 billion in growth, lower taxes. By Greg Reilly on April 3, 2014 http://www.stratfordstar.com/19360/imagine-1-billion-in-growth-lower-taxes/
We weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry after reading it. For decades now every candidate for anything in Stratford has touted “economic growth” as the way to reduce the tax burden on Stratford residents. After elections of course you never hear that again. Harkins is no exception. This year he is touting a $29 million increase in the Grand List (taxable things). Nice. Except that is only 0.64% growth while he is increasing taxes more than ten times that amount.
The reality for the rest of us is that income and property values have gone down steadily in the last five years while the Town budget has steadily risen. In fact, the only group that hasn’t seen such a decline is every non-union member of the Town or Board of Education. They are doing quite nicely thank you.
Mr. Reilly goes on the say, “Stratford is Stratford. Costs go up, and taxpayers often do not want to give up services to reduce costs.” While the first portion is correct, the latter is not. The correlation between what we pay in Stratford for services and the cost of them is weak at best. We hear this a lot in Stratford. Every time a Council wants to shave a few percentage points from the Board of Education we would hear that the BOE would have to close a school. Similarly, every time the Council wanted a reduction in the Municipal Budget we would be told that solid waste or leaf collection would have to be cut. Sometimes they go so far as to say essential services like the Fire Department would have to be cut. It’s almost as if the end of the world will come if a single penny is left out of the tax bill.
Our favorite comment by Mr. Reilly was this one: “Of course, no two towns are alike, so tax rates would not be expected to be the same.” And yet, every time a non-union salary goes up or a “fee” is increased it always because some other towns are paying higher fees/salaries for the same job title (but not the same job description) or service. Never mind about actual costs. See the WPCA budget.
But the best line was saved for Mayor Harkins. ““The key to tax stabilization is to create a welcoming and customer-friendly environment for local businesses to grow and new businesses to relocate,” the mayor said.” That is completely false. The key to tax stabilization is for the RTC mayor and Council to act responsibly and treat tax dollars as if they were ours instead of theirs. The first thing to do is to start accounting for our money with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles instead of the “whatever” method.
Mr. Reilly’s position, of course, is that the Town Budget must be increased because $1 billion in the growth of the Grand List is impossible. Thus he justifies Harkins’ increase in our tax burden. While we agree that $1 billion in growth is not a reasonable expectation, we do not agree that nothing else can be done.
