To the editor:
Zero Based Budgeting is a methodical and thoughtful approach used in determining how much money an organization needs to set aside to function. It requires managers and administrators to examine and justify every line item in their budget. Municipalities throughout the United States are using this accounting tool because it is considered to be more taxpayer-friendly.
First noticed in 1993 were two line items, 082-01and 083-01, in the Ambulance Department’s budget. Line 082-01, bad debt allowance, and line 083-01, contract allowance, are not expenditures and should not have been listed on the Expense Budget. However, the City Council continually funded these line items through 2013 and partly through 2014. As a member of the Caribou Secession Committee, I brought this to the attention of previous city managers and city councils at public hearings on proposed budgets on a number of occasions over the past years as can be verified in the minutes of those meetings. That effort to correct this error always fell on deaf ears.
Zero based budgeting would have eliminated this problem.
The budget of 2013 saw the highest recorded level of funding these two false expenses which, when added together, equaled $423,217.60. During the previous 20 years, it is estimated that an excess of $6 million has been extracted from the taxpayers of Caribou. This is one of the driving forces that resulted in an expansion of city government in manpower, equipment and fixed assets.
Fiscal year 2014 saw the joining of the Fire Department to Department 31 (the ambulance department) for budgeting purposes. 2014 also saw the discontinuation of line item 083-01, Contract Allowance, and a reduction in 082-01, Bad Debt Allowance.
Fiscal year 2015 saw the elimination of line item 081-01, Bad Debt Allowance and the transfer of line item 226-01, Ambulance Reserve, to Department 85, Capital Improvement, in the 2015 budget which should have resulted in another $65,000 savings in the Fire/Ambulance request for taxes.
The tax request for these two departments in 2013 was $2,278,341 — now the tax request for this one department for 2015 is $2,208,433 a reduction of $69,881 in tax request. Although $488,217.60 was removed from line items in this new department $418,336.60 has been added to other line items within this new department.
Until Zero Based Budgeting is implemented into the city of Caribou budgeting process, the over-taxation of its citizens shall continue. The Caribou Secession Committee will seek to place Zero Based Budgeting in the new town of Lyndon’s Charter to ensure its citizens will not be over-taxed.
