It will be hard for public officials to understand, but the “tough love” approach may be what is needed this budget season.
The people of Maine have said they want the state to pay a larger share of local education costs, but the tacit understanding between the public and the officials is that the money will reduce upward pressure on property taxes, rather than allowing expansions of local spending.
That means fewer – if any – new programs, and may mean reductions in existing services. Right now those who work for the public are trying to decide what’s best for the people, and they want to give us everything they know we want, were this an ideal world. But it’s not an ideal world.
The answer is simple: Show us the consequences of our choices. Show us what needs to go, now that we have said we want lower local taxes.
The pressure is on, given last year’s property-tax revolt, culminating in the 1 percent property-tax cap referendum on November’s ballot. Town officials and others convinced voters to defeat the measure by promising future tightening of public purse strings.
To fail now would bring all the tax-cappers’ arguments about government overspending raging back, this time with teeth and claws.
But actually delivering on the promise of lower taxes – or at least smaller tax increases – is proving harder than ever.
Usually school and town administrators and board members tangle over what is the appropriate amount of money to spend on education, police and other public services, while still leaving taxpayers with some money in their pockets.
And that’s as it should be – discussion and debate are how democracy happens.
But this year, the stakes are so high that officials in Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough can’t seem even to agree on what the budget numbers are, or should be.
In part, it’s the fault of town councilors in both communities, who pledged last fall to do their part to keep taxes under control, by adopting resolutions that are fatally flawed.
In Cape’s case, councilors personally committed themselves to keep spending increases to the Consumer Price Index, with exceptions for voter-approved debt and enrollment increases. In Scarborough, councilors agreed to send 90 percent of increased state aid back to taxpayers.
While those sound like simple solutions, the results now show they are anything but.
Cape elected officials had an extended discussion about which of several Consumer Price Indexes to use, and Scarborough’s town manager and superintendent disagree over whether the school budget does or does not meet the council’s restriction.
Town Manager Ron Owens says his calculations based on the resolution would let the schools raise their tax levy by only $200,000. In that interpretation, the schools must cut spending – or raise non-tax revenue – by $500,000.
But Superintendent Bill Michaud says in his budget that the schools must spend $2 million more to meet their needs. From his point of view, the tax relief comes because he doesn’t have to bill all of that $2 million to taxpayers. Instead, he can use 90 percent of the new state aid, $1.1 million, to reduce the load on residents.
The councilors’ resolutions don’t make clear exactly what the calculations should be, and that has provided room for school officials to put themselves on the hook for raising taxes, too.
Cape Interim Superintendent Bob Lyman wants to take $58,500 of the new state money – an amount the state has designated for educational technology – and spend it, outside the council’s spending cap, on laptop computers for 10th graders.
He says if the schools don’t spend it, the money will not be provided at all.
He is choosing to ignore the fact that the school district spends far more than $58,500 of Cape taxpayers’ dollars on technology already. The state money should replace some of that spending, saving local taxpayers money, rather than being used for new programs.
Laptops are a fine idea, and have been successful so far. Parents, no doubt, will object. Educators already do. But the choice is not theirs. It belongs to all of us.
It’s time for the people to feel what the choices mean.
Jeff Inglis, editor
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