The town's 2010 budget

I wasted my time flapping my gums at the Public Hearing held tonight for the 2010 town budget.  There were 18 in the audience, including a couple of town employees and 4 Kent Fiscal Watch members.  I had my say and firmly believe that nobody listened.  For what it's worth, below are my remarks (I had to hurry the delivery, to fit into the 3 minutes allowed by the Supervisor):

"My name is Cliff Narbey.  I am a Kent resident and taxpayer.

I am a member of Kent Fiscal Watch, a non-partisan group that promotes transparency and fiscal responsibility in government.  It offers suggestions for ways to reduce spending while maintaining needed services.

This town board is to be commended for the improvement in fiscal management over the past 2 years.  In 2008, you achieved a surplus of $952,000 in the General Fund, over the previous administration’s budget.  In your budget for 2009 you planned a minor increase in taxes.  In this 2010 budget you reduce expenditures by 2%.

So it troubles me to come before you tonight and make some criticisms of your work.

You have publicly stated that you work hard on the budget and that you "do your homework".  Thus you know that Kent town taxes are almost $2 per $1,000 of property market value (mil. rate) higher than Patterson and Putnam Valley, towns that have the same assessment basis as Kent. You know that our mil. rate is 60% higher than theirs and that a Kent homeowner with a home valued at $300,000 pays almost $600 per year more in town tax than if that home was in Patterson or Putnam Valley.

You know that those neighboring towns spend less per resident than our town.

You know that the town of Fishkill, with a higher population (22,000), has a lower aggregate budget than Kent.

You know that the town of Patterson has passed a 2010 budget that reduces spending by 2.7%, after a 12% reduction in 2009.  The town of Southeast appears poised to pass a 2010 budget with reduced spending, after a 4% reduction in 2009.  I assume that, in doing your homework, you have analyzed and studied other towns’ budgets.

In my opinion, you have done a good "housekeeping" job, tidying up - but you have not addressed the deep-seated, structural spending habits of our town government, built up over decades.

You appear unwilling to utilize the powerful management tool of zero-based budgeting.  Properly implemented, this would enable you to review all of the services provided by the town, review the continued need for these and see any duplication.  You would review the resources needed to deliver these services and the optimal cost of these resources.

You would learn, for example, what the 4 full-time Kent police department’s detectives "detect" (at an aggregate cost of $½ million in salaries, benefits, use of vehicles and office space, continued training and education, etc.) and how many arrests they make in a year. [A board member corrected me – there are only 2 detectives, so my numbers are too high].

You would learn what the large number of highway workers’ aggregate hours produce – what they actually do.

You would learn why the municipal garage costs $621,000 per year – an average annual cost of over $7,000 per vehicle or piece of motorized equipment.  I note that you still do not recoup the entire cost of this garage from its users.

You appear unwilling to embrace consolidation of government services in a meaningful way.

You appear unwilling to use a purchase order system in order to control costs before they are incurred and appear before you as vouchers.

You appear unwilling to solve the case of police officers on town-paid disability for up to 2 decades.

You appear unwilling to address the rapid growth of post-retirement benefits that are non-contributory for the retirees (in this budget for $350,000).

You appear unwilling to address the extensive use of outside professionals (lawyers, engineers, human resource consultants, information technology consultants).

You appear to be unwilling to replace the Blackbaud bookkeeping software that is demonstrably not suitable for government (I believe that Kent is one of only 2 government users in all of America).

I respectfully ask you to consider my criticisms in the coming year.  I regret that Mr. Rohde will not be able to contribute to that and I salute his service, his sincerity and his independence.  I ask the Republican members to be true to the philosophy of their party – and not be "tax and spend" liberals."