It’s budget-creating season at Hartford town hall! Budgets that department heads submitted to the town manager, who altered slightly and submitted to us on the selectboard, were ideal budgets that would have resulted in an 11% overall budget increase. We couldn’t have that, so we asked the department heads to make cuts. The cuts that came from that effort paint a picture of the priorities of the folks who prepared this budget. What efforts by the town are being asked to sacrifice the most, or the least? Are they your priorities? Let’s find out!

I broke down the cuts presented to the board this week into percentages of the overall department expenditure these cuts would come out of. I say department “expenditure” and not “budget” because I have also attempted to factor in revenues that departments produce on their own. So the percentage cuts I list below (that is, PROPOSED percentage cuts) for each department more closely reflect what taxpayers are paying to fund that department—not just the budget of the department.

As you’ll see below, I found the Department of Public Works is bearing the brunt of the cuts with 17%. The IT department and Parks and Rec follow. Granted, a good chunk of DPW’s cuts is due to moving a large truck purchase from its budget into a proposal for using funds Hartford has collected over the years in a “local option tax” (LOT) account. (The proposal on the table, which will go to voters, is for some of this to fund vehicles for PD, FD, DPW, and Parks.)

If we remove LOT-funded vehicles from the equation, DPW would be asked to cut in the neighborhood of 11% while police would be cutting 0% (since its cuts would be entirely covered by the LOT). This 11% cut would largely come from the paving budget. I work with paving contractors like BlakTop often in my day job; they are ready to take Hartford’s contracts, should we budget for them.

But let’s talk just straight percentages, i.e., not disregarding vehicles to be funded with LOT. Parks and Rec would face a 9.46% cut compared to the PD’s 2.28%. Planning and zoning, the driving force behind the 300+ housing units built here in the last year, would face a 3.68% cut.

I will say that whenever election season rolls around, voters seem to shout from the rooftops that they want us to focus on the physical infrastructure of the town. As you may know, DPW oversees that. Many of these voters might like to see the police budget cut before DPW’s. I would count myself among them.

Here are the data for the cuts. I show my work for it on my website, brandonsmith.com. As always, this has been my personal opinion; I’m not speaking for the town or the board as a whole.

– Boards and commissions: 14.25% cut (relatively small budget)

– Town Manager’s Office: 28.37% cut, primarily due to the exclusion of funding a new facilities manager position next year

– Town Clerk: 1.53% of its cost as a proposed cut. That said, most of this department’s work we are obligated by state law to fund.

– Financial management: 0.43% cut (relatively small budget)

– Assessor’s office: 1.29% cut (relatively small budget)

– IT Department: 15.61% cut

– Police Department: 2.28% cut (100% of which would be restored if voters approve spending local option tax proceeds on vehicles)

– Fire Department: 5.27% cut

– Department of Public Works: 17.70% cut

– Community Health: 60.48% cut. (This seems to be because we are spreading out the cost to town funds outside the general fund, not because we are eliminating the position.)

– General Appropriated Services: 74.60% of its cost as a proposed cut. This is due to our assumption that, until we receive petitions, we are not funding Advance Transit (to whom we grant ~$98K/yr), nor Hartford Historical Society (to whom we grant ~$10K/yr). In my opinion we should assume both these worthy organizations will receive enough petitions to restore their funding, and plan for these expenses.

– Parks and Recreation: 9.46% cut

– Planning and zoning: 3.68% cut (relatively small budget)

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Showing the work below. Please pardon the formatting, which isn’t entirely consistent throughout; it was more of a “note pad” for me, but hopefully still legible as a way to check my data.

• Boards and commissions (Dept 115): $7,876.83 out of $55,276, or 14.25% of its cost as a proposed cut.
• Town Manager’s Office (Dept 121): $210,547.28 out of $742,047.64, or 28.37% of its cost as a proposed cut, primarily due to the exclusion of funding a new facilities manager position next year.
• Town Clerk (Two budget departments): $1,100 plus $2,750 (subtotal $3850) out of budgets that have $26,671.00 plus $340,782.41, (subtotal $367,453.41 offset by $98,000 of fees and $17,700 of permits and licenses is $251,753.41 it costs us to run the department), or 1.53% of its cost as a proposed cut. That said, most of this department’s work we are obligated by state law to fund.
• Financial management (Dept 171): $2,000 out of ($476,633.02 minus $8,627 in fees collected is $468,006.02 cost to run the department), or 0.43% of its cost as a proposed cut.
• Assessor’s office (Dept 174): $3,950 out of $307,008.00, or 1.29% of its cost as a proposed cut.
• IT (Dept 181): $78,707.48 out of $504,073.50, or 15.61% of its cost as a proposed cut.
• Police Department (Dept 211): $95,000 out of $4,298,641.34, minus revenues of 110,000; 5,000; 6,500; 5,500; 9,000; 1,000, with a subtotal of $4,161,641 cost of the department, means 2.28% of PD’s cost to taxpayers as a proposed cut.
• Fire Department (Dept 221): $114,001 plus $114,494 that they’re declining to transfer to reserve accounts for future truck needs (subtotal $228,495) out of ($5,270,175.26 minus revenues of 40,000, 100, 160,000, 2,000, 700,000, 35,000, 50 for a cost to run the FD of $4,333,025.26), or 5.27% of the cost to run the FD as a proposed cut.
• Department of Public Works (Many budget departments): $300,000 plus $50,000 plus $280,000 (Subtotal $630,000 of cuts) out of budget departments with budgets of $1,671,576.85; $879,501.96; $78,000; $52,000; $22,500; $591,000, and $264,043.68. (Subtotal DPW budget of $3,558,622.49, with negligible revenues.) That’s 17.70% of DPW’s cost as a proposed cut.
• Community Health (Dept 412): $51,977 out of $85,947, or 60.48% of its cost as a proposed cut. (This seems to be because we are spreading out the cost to other funds, not because we are eliminating the position.)
• General Appropriated Services (Dept 425): $108,096 out of $144,896, or 74.60% of its cost as a proposed cut.. This is due to our assumption, until we receive petitions for this funding, that we are not funding Advance Transit (to whom we grant about $98K/yr every year), nor Hartford Historical Society (to whom we grant about $10K/yr every year). In my opinion we should assume both these worthy organizations will receive enough petitions to restore their funding, and plan for these expenses, rather than assume they won’t receive enough signatures.
• Parks and Recreation (Many budget departments): $40,040.63 plus 2,421.03 plus 111.40 plus 75,000 plus 27,000 (subtotal proposed cuts $144,573.06), cut from budgets of $368,538.56 plus 125,684.03 plus 508,979.34 plus 7,962.50 plus 63,275 plus 400,823.82 plus 13,800 plus 104,352.56 plus 100,520.00 plus 371,565.83 plus 28,938.07. (Subtotal parks & rec budget $2,094,439.71, less revenues of 35,000; 2,000; 275,000; 15,000; 10,500; 75,000; 105,000; 25,000; 500; 7,000; 14,000; 2,000, totals cost to run parks & rec of $1,528,439.) That’s 9.46% of Parks & Rec’s cost as a proposed cut.
• Planning and zoning (Many budget departments): $11,065 plus $7,500 (subtotal $18,565) out of budgets of 511,782 plus 15,500 plus 500 plus 8,265 (subtotal $536,047, less revenues of 17,000; 2,000; 10,000; 1,200; 890, totaling cost to run dept of $504,957), or 3.68% of planning & zoning’s cost as a proposed cut.

*This doesn’t account for cuts that will become proposals to voters to approve spending money we’ve been collecting from the local option tax. This may or may not get approved by voters, but at any rate, all large departments have asks in there so trying to factor this in helps less when trying to compare departments.
**Some departments have negligible extraneous budget departments they oversee. I generally didn’t include these in calculations.