Give Town Manager Herb Durfee credit. His big budget proposal, calling for a 20% increase in spending, won’t sit well with taxpayers struggling during the pandemic. But, it will force the Selectboard to address long-term infrastructure issues and make decisions about them. That Selectboard discussion is long overdue.
In his email transmitting the budget to the Selectboard Town Manager Durfee said the draft budget is “not for the faint of heart.” Further he emphasized, the budget is “not the ‘Town Manager’s Recommendation’. Rather, it’s the first draft of a living document that is going to have to go through several iterations and much deliberation before you are comfortable offering it for voter approval.”
Moreover, the following from his email highlights the predicament that Mr. Durfee sees facing the Town.
[It is] time to have serious discussions about Norwich’s fiscal future balanced with the community’s high expectations for the facilities and services the Town provides. In many of [the Department Heads’] minds, they are becoming concerned that they will not be able to continue providing the higher quality levels of service the community expects (and frequently demands) without your support and additional funding considerations for the coming fiscal year and several years beyond. … They well understand that their tasks need to be accomplished in a fiscally constrained environment, but they need the tools now to be able to better identify and focus on the priorities so that the dollars they are granted result in the most value-added facility or service.
Budget Numbers
The twelve-page proposal draft budget is available on the Town’s website, here. That document consists of spreadsheets. However, there is is no narrative highlighting the significant changes to the budget. That is regrettable.
An excerpt from the summary spreadsheet is above. Total Town spending increases by 20% or nearly $900,000. In comparison, the current budget was an increase of about 4% from the prior year.
As the summary sheet at the top of this post shows, the big percentage increases were in Finance (58%), General Administration (264%), and Public Works (35%). However, the lions share of increased funding goes to the DPW. Of the $900,000 in increased funding, about $668,000 goes to that department. That is approximately 75% of the increase.
Property Tax Revenues
To finance that 20% increase in spending, property tax revenues will need to increase by 27%. See the chart below. Because the other monetary articles will decrease this year, the overall property tax hike is projected to be around 19%. That does not include school taxes.
Note that two monetary articles last year were one shoot appropriations. Money went to the Brown Schoolhouse Road Bridge ($80,000)and the Regional Energy Coordinator ($30,670). Taxpayers did not expect to see those repeated.
Looking at the last five years of property tax revenues, they grew from $3.87 million in fiscal year 2018 to a proposed $5.13 million in FY 2022. That is a total increase of 33% over a five-year period, by my math. I doubt the Norwich Grand List has grown by as much.
Meeting Dates
The Selectboard needs to finalize the budget by January 13, according to the draft meeting minutes from November 11. No substantive discussions occurred in November. However, the meeting minutes say “SB members agreed to meet regarding the budget on 12/2/2020, 12/3/2020, 12/9/2020, 12/16/2020, and possibly on 12/23/2020.”
Missing items
Putting together an annual budget takes a significant amount of effort by the Town Manager and his staff. I appreciate the work done to date.
Nonetheless, I note some items that seemed to be missing.
- Budget summary. I touched on this above. No document summarizes, in words, the significant changes to the budget. Twelve pages of spreadsheets works for some folks, in the know. However, it is not user friendly for most.
- Public input on capital plan. As part of the budget process, the Selectboard will discuss a five-year capital plan that underlies the many of the significant increases in proposed budget. A capital plan is a big deal. It reflects the vision and objectives of the community, as to public improvements. Norwich has not had a capital plan for some time. Budget season is too busy a time to solicit and gather public input in any meaningful way.
- Staffing in Finance Office. This budget anticipates a full-time Finance Director and a full-time assistant. I thought the Selectboard planned on a part-time assistant once a Finance Director was in place.
- Additional money for the Affordable Housing Fund. Is Norwich serious about affordable housing? The amount in that designated fund has not been added to in years.
- Additional money for the climate change designated fund. If the Town is not meeting its goal of a 5% annual reduction in fossil fuel use, should it not be adding to its climate change designated fund? Regular contributions to that fund could help offset the cost of larger projects, such as geothermal or the premium cost of buying an electric fire truck.
- Funding for a sewer study. In about a year, the School Board hopes to make a decision regarding an off-site wastewater system for Marion Cross School. However, as far as I can ascertain, no money is allocated for the Town budget to study sewer options in the Village and Route 5 South. Shouldn’t the Town be working on the same timeline as MCS? Once the School District starts digging, an opportunity to share construction costs is lost.
This appears to be a large increase especially for people on fixed incomes.
Where the (expletive deleted) does this kind of budget thinking come from? Even if it is expected that the 20% increase will be reduced through discussion, it is inevitable that in this Town where for too many “cost is no object” for getting the luxuries that they deem to be necessities, and where too many have no consideration for their neighbors and fellow towns folk who do not have the incomes and wealth to support this endless wave of expensive projects of dubious necessity, too many of the budget increases will be approved.
Approval of ever rising budgets means inevitably that there will be ever rising tax burdens. For an ever-increasing number of people who move into Norwich, taxes are only a small portion of their financial burden, so rising taxes are only a philosophical problem to them. But for a number of people, ever rising taxes are a practical problem, the solution to which can too often be limited to giving up the fight to stay in the town that they originally chose to live out their lives after being born here or having come by choice and invested everything they have to stay, and selling out their beloved homes.
No one has the right to drive other people out of town. The constantly rising taxes that are response to demands for expensive projects is a means of driving people who cannot afford the increased taxes out of town. The displacement of people already residing in a place that others with more wealth, money and power want is often referred by the euphemism “gentrification”. It occurs in lots of places, and although it may provide some amenities and “improvements” it also usually guts those places where it happens of any subtle grace or lasting beauty. New York City’s SoHo, full of artists’ lofts and funky businesses along with creativity and soul, has been lost to multi-million dollar condominiums and executive offices devoid of any sort of spirit-moving activity. The lower income creative types ended up dispersed to less-central locations. New York is now much more charmless.
Norwich is being gentrified. Despite pleasant tones of the voices of the factions, there has been declared a war on those who were born here and came to stay with appreciation of the Town as it is, by those who have come here for certain amenities, particularly the school system, with no intention of stay longer than they need to for getting their kids educated or when the next job opportunity elsewhere arrives. It appears that there is an active movement in the Town to force those without large incomes or wealth and/or those who have property that others want to leave the Town. The weapon of choice is rising property taxes. And it should be kept in mind that the income sensitive property was assistance provided through the State has very strict limits not only based on taxpayers’ incomes, but also the value of their properties which is something that demand for property in the town causes to increase. Also affecting the assistance is the State’s ability to raise revenue. These factors reduce the assistance available to tax payers who need such assistance. This is especially important during these pandemic times, when the State’s revenue is almost inevitably going to be reduced.
None of this is to say that change is not inevitable or unnecessary. Nothing is perfect nor eternal. But change does not have to be harmful, and should not be so. For instance, Norwich could use a lot more diversity, at least racial and financial. As one person notably wrote in the Planning Commission’s survey of things the Town’s people thought were important, (and I don’t think this is verbatim) “Norwich has an excess of rich white people”. I think diversity and environmental protection including combating climate change are more important than big, expensive public or public sponsored projects for which the greatest value is to allow some privileged to parade their altruism on a stage paid for by everyone else.
The Norwich Town Manager has chosen the worst possible time to take these steps in order to get the Select Board and Town’s people into a “discussion” about long term town finances. What he should be doing is looking for ways to reduce taxes which are unquestionably excessive. By not doing so, the Town Manager is actively harming the interests of a significant portion of the Town’s people.