Brewer facing significant challenges in budgeting

BREWER – A joint session Tuesday proved to be a reality check for the municipal and school officials charged with developing operating budgets. By all accounts, this fiscal year will be a tight one.

In separate presentations on their preliminary budget proposals, municipal and school officials alike said they were grappling with the double whammy of flat revenues and rising costs. Many of the expenses both bodies face are either fixed by contract or beyond local control.

“We’re facing some very difficult times,” said City Manager Stephen Bost. “We’re facing them on the municipal end and we’re facing them on the school end. I don’t see a lot of fluff in either budget.”

State aid for Brewer’s schools in the 2001-02 fiscal year is expected to remain flat for the fourth consecutive year. A souring state and regional economy is expected to adversely affect such city income sources as state revenue sharing, vehicle excise tax and registration receipts. Meanwhile, the costs for a range of essential services are projected to increase.

Some expenses municipal and school officials expect will rise are salaries and health insurance – the latter of which could increase by as much as 32 percent – fuel, many contracted services, electricity and other utilities.

The upshot of it all was that the changes in revenue and costs did not bode well for a community struggling to maintain some stability in its tax rate while preserving the level of serves that residents have come to expect.

As things stood Tuesday night, with school and municipal administrators three months into their respective budget development efforts, the net effect of the two draft budgets would result in a $4 increase to the city’s tax rate, which now stands at $24.23 per $1,000 in property valuation.

Though no target amounts for budget cuts were set during Tuesday’s special council meeting, city and school officials agreed that an increase of that magnitude was not acceptable, either to them or to the city’s residential and commercial property taxpayers. Officials from both camps concluded that much more work needs to be done to whip the overall budget into shape.

On the school side of the equation, administrators have developed a draft $13,841,293 gross operating budget, up almost 11 percent from this year. That preliminary budget would enable the school system to address most of its needs without a reduction in staffing, according to Lester Young, the School Department’s business manager.

“We put together what we feel is a good budget, but our fear is that this good budget can’t be [completely] funded,” Young said.

According to Superintendent Allan Snell, the school department’s “A-Team” was asked earlier this month to develop three levels of budget cuts that amounted to $874,600.

The proposals, which include reductions in staffing, supplies and equipment among other things, were presented to the school committee Monday night and are under review. The budget cut proposals will be revisited during the committee’s April 9 meeting.

The gross municipal budget of $8,198,078, also still in draft form, now reflects a 3.74 percent increase from this year’s budget. Municipal department heads, led by Bost and Finance Director Karen McVey, already have undergone two rounds of budget cuts. Among the proposed budget reductions are the elimination of positions in the public works and police departments, as well as a proposal to put off filling a vacancy in the Fire Department. Remaining employees would take on the duties of the workers whose jobs would be eliminated.

Bost and McVey singled out the Police Department for its efforts to find ways to cut costs. According to Bost and McVey, Chief Stephen Barker developed a plan that calls for $7,452 less in overall spending than this year, yet includes $23,500 for a new cruiser.

Bost said city officials are gearing up for a third round of budget cuts. Some of the additional budget-cutting measures to be considered in the next few weeks are reduced operating hours at the public library and at City Hall and possible staffing cuts at the Fire Department.