CARIBOU, Maine — Caribou City Councilors unanimously approved putting a city charter amendment on the Nov. 15 ballot which, if approved, would change the city’s budget preparation time frame.
Under the proposal, councilors would be allowed to vote on the finalized expense budget on the third Monday in March as opposed to Dec. 15 of the previous year.
In the council packet, the ordinance states that it would allow future city councilors to approve and set a budget within the fiscal years that they are elected, enable more time for the public to review expense proposals, and allow the expense and capital budgets to be considered at the same time as income projections.
City Attorney Richard Solman reviewed the amendments and was quoted in the city council packet saying that it “does not contain any provision prohibited by the United States Constitution, the Constitution of Maine or the general laws,” and suggested that the changes be listed as amendments instead of revisions, as revisions require a charter commission.
Before voting to approve the item for the ballot, the council held a public hearing in which residents were able to enter the city council chambers one at a time in order to fall within social distancing guidelines.
Caribou resident Gail Hagelstein questioned why the council did not simply change its fiscal year to coincide with the state, county and school’s fiscal years.
By amending the charter instead of changing the fiscal year, Hagelstein said the city would be essentially operating without a budget for three months.
“What value does this change bring to the city,” she asked. “It is fiscally irresponsible to make these changes to the charter. How are bills and salaries going to be paid? How will these be handled, and what is the value of changing it now?”
She said that if there are concerns with a lapse between expense data and income data, the city should just change its budget to a fiscal year.
“And I know firsthand about cities that had to give out two tax bills in one year and the gnashing of teeth and stomping of feet, moaning, groaning, whining and complaining disappeared after the first year when they realized this wasn’t going to continue and this really was more effective,” she said. “You didn’t have to pay your taxes just before Christmas. You did it just before you went on vacation — which is a whole lot easier to swallow.”
She said that unless the council is able to answer more questions about the amendment or to explain to taxpayers why it adds value, then they should not move forward with it.
Caribou Mayor Mark Goughan responded to Hagelstein’s questions, and said that for the first three months of the year council would be working under the previous year’s budgeted amounts, allowing the city to take care of electric bills and necessities that come through on a monthly basis.
Hagelstein asked if the city would be using the actual amounts from the previous year or budgeted amounts, and Goughan said he believed it was budgeted numbers.
Caribou City Manager Dennis Marker confirmed on July 7 that the city would use budgeted amounts during this period.
As for the value of moving the timeframe from Dec. 31 to late March of the following year, Goughan said that one of the major problems he has encountered in setting the expense budget in December is that there are too many unknown variables at that time. By setting the budget three months later, he said the city will have a clearer picture of where the state, county, and school budgets will stand, and also an opportunity to look at the city’s income budget.
“So why not just change the fiscal year?” Hagelstein asked.
Goughan said that move would require a new charter commission to be formed, and noted the city recently held such a commission. That group decided not to change the date.
“They decided to do it this way, by moving it to Dec. 15,” Goughan said. “So we thought this was an easy fix, and it could be done relatively quickly.”
Hagelstein said she understood Goughan’s perspective, but still disagreed with the proposed amendments.
“I just don’t think if the charter says the 31st, you go into your fiscal year three months in debt,” she said.
With no other public input, the public hearing was closed.
Councilor Hugh Kirkpatrick said that the first three months of the year under this amendment will be more of a trade-off, with the benefit of councilors being more informed when setting the budget.
“You’re trading the schedule for having more information,” he said. “One of the tradeoffs is that for those three months you have to look backwards at what you spent the year before. So there really is no perfect time or way to do it. This just gets you closer to having the most information that you would want to put [the budget] together.”
Goughan also said these changes would allow newly elected city council members, who are sworn in on Jan. 2, to act on the current year’s budget instead of waiting one year until they can have input on municipal finances.
A full version of the ordinance with proposed schedule changes is available on the city of Caribou’s website under the June 29 council packet.
