Submitted by James Doar
A lot of what appears on the Rumford Distorter annoys me, but right now two stories in particular were brought to my attention. The first is the computer contents nonsense. I never asked for my hard drive to be erased, in the waning hours or otherwise. You can corroborate this story with Len Greaney. The lap top crashed in April-May. I spoke with our computer people at Advanced Microsystems in Lewiston. They heard my description of the issue and suggested it was the hard drive. They recommended buying an entirely new machine. A member of the town staff, who is knowledgeable about these things, said we could probably fix it. I thought, "that's smart, I'll fix it for $100, instead of replacing it for $500." It was out of my office for over a month. In the meantime, I borrowed a laptop from the PD; they are understaffed, so have some surplus equipment. I found a new hard drive on E-bay (which I purchased on my own credit card) and asked a staff member to replace it. The employee backed up everything on the old computer before replacing the hard drive. Not that it was necessary; we put everything on a server which is saved to a remote profile. This is what allowed me to continue to function while using one of the PD's computers. No matter what computer is used, as long as the user is logged in they can access everything on that "computer." In fact, I worked from my personal laptop for two days while snowed in at Jackson Hole, and two days from both Terri's computer and from Debbie's computer. I accessed personnel and union information available only to the town manager from those two computers.
The second is the LD1 "spending cap." There is no such thing. LD1 is a "tax cap." If it were a spending cap it would be easy. For the moment I am going to ignore the fact that Jennifer Norris and Ron Theriault were largely responsible for the question being on the ballot (how responsible is it to cut town departments and give money to social service organizations over which the town has no control?). LD1 is one small piece of a total municipal budget (actually it affects the school budget also, but in this regard the state is failing us - I think). If we think of a municipal budget as getting funded through two separate "pots" of money, then LD1 may make more sense. The first pot is property taxes; it is the largest. The second we'll call "other." Other comes from things like excise taxes, state revenue sharing, and carried balances. If we have a $7 million budget, can count on $2 million of other, then we need $5 million in property taxes. LD1 gives us a formula, not altogether arbitrary, that determines how much we can increase the total amount of the tax commitment used for municipal purposes from one year to the next. If we can only increase the total commitment to $4.9 million, then we need to find $100,000 somewhere. We either ask the voters to approve an additional $100k in total property tax commitment, cut the budget $100k, or find it in "other." It's not easy and each choice has its pros and cons.
That's the nuts and bolts of LD1, almost. At the risk of being even more wonkish, the Distorter is completely wrong about what happens if LD1 is voted down, but the budget articles are voted up. No one goes back to the drawing board. The town either finds the money in "other" or simply doesn't spend the money. As long as the total tax commitment doesn't go above that set amount the town adheres to LD1. Think about it like this: If you need a new roof for your house and you saved $10,000 for it, but the contractor says it will cost $10,500, you either find the $500 somewhere or work something out that allows you to not spend that $500. Maybe it means you supply some sweat equity, maybe you use a cheaper material, who knows. The town's people vote an appropriation (google it); it is simply the legal authority to spend. Nothing says it has to be spent, just that no more than it can be spent (not including grants and carried balances). It's easy to get lost in the details, but conceptually it is pretty straight forward if you ask the questions.
Jim
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4 comments:
Jim, you were a class act as our town manager and handled yourself with the utmost dignity and self control. I now respect you even more for taking the time to correct some of this misinformation. Thank you
Mr. Doar, can you say sour grapes? That is what is see coming from the Rumford Distorter. Someone ran for position of town manager and did not win. Instead of viewing it as losing, it should have been viewed as "I gave the people another option for town magager. The people made their choice. I contributed to democracy". Unfortunately, someone can't see it that way. Therefore, a smear campaign was in order. A witch hunt. Nothing would be viewed in a positive light. Stories would be "reported" without facts to support the stories. As we all know, stories without facts are fiction or fantasy. When the facts are presented to the publishers of the fiction or fantasy stories, they will move on to another aspect of their "target". Much like the RPD "targeted" town officers? Mr. Doar, the fact that New Page took you on is testament to your ability and talent. Your commitment to ethics. Sport scouts look for talent in individuals. The team that the individual is on may have a losing season, but if the individual performs to a standard of excellence, the scouts will see that. Apparently, New Page watched you while you were playing on a losing team and saw YOUR talent. Congratulations on your new position. Keep The Faith.
Yes Jim, how goes the new job? We miss you at town hall! As I've said before, you're just one of those people who will do well no matter what...it's obvious.
Has anyone seen The LISBON Distorter yet? Check out that letter to the editor from jennifer Stowell Norris. She "just learned" of their site. What a joke!
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