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7/9/2009

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Cumberland directors brainstorm cuts, look for public input

By MARCIA GREEN, Valley Breeze Editor

CUMBERLAND - OK, Cumberland residents. If you could make cuts in town spending, or increase revenue, what would you do?

Here are some of the ideas suggested by Town Hall's department directors last week:

* Ask the sports leagues to cut their own grass.

* Charge per bag for trash removal.

* Increase the emergency room visit co-pays for employees and move eligible employees off the town's plan and onto Medicare for a savings $200,000 a year.

* Have public works employees change the oil in police cruisers, saving $34,000 a year.

* Charge citizen groups for use of the library meeting rooms to offset the cost of heat and electricity.

* Share little used equipment, such as drain cleaners, with other towns.

* Install windmills to generate electricity like Portsmouth.

* Establish a four-day work week to save utilities. Foster is said to be saving $1,500 a month.

* Hold a major soccer tournament or polo match or Saturday flea market at Diamond Hill Park and increase fees for others staging events there.

* Add a $2 surcharge to tickets sold at the town-owned Blackstone River Theatre.

* Add a compost facility at the town garage instead of paying to dispose of lawn clippings and sell to landscapers.

* Sell off the former Central Grammar School building on Clark Street, among other town-owned properties.

* Outsource town services to other towns - collect another community's taxes or provide financial management talent.

The town's 20 or so department directors gathered last Wednesday to begin a summer-long process of reconciling this year's available municipal tax and revenue dollars - about $14 million - with the town's top spending priorities.

A couple hours of brain-storming yielded a lengthy list of possibilities that ranged from cuts to employee benefits to better consolidation of vendor contracts between departments to cutting services or staging fund-raising events that take advantage of the town's facilities.

All town employees will be invited next to try the same exercise, said Mayor Daniel McKee, and then all the town's citizens will participate.

A survey may even be issued that asks residents to rank services by importance to them. Would citizens give up some street lighting or regular mowing of town lawns to avoid a trash collection charge? What's more important, tree limb chipping or appliance disposal?

McKee urged the directors last Wednesday to identify lots of small ways to save money and warned that next year's budget won't be any more generous than this year's.

"Today is July 1," he told the group, indicating the start of the new fiscal year.

"We're looking at a $2.3 million shortfall," he continued, then noted the town budget already relies on using $1.3 million from the surplus and holding back a $400,000 payment to the police pension fund as well as needing $200,000 savings in health care coverage that hasn't been identified.

Moreover, he said, "We have a $2.3 million shortfall that's existing on the backdrop of virtually level-funding every department except debt service - and this is the second year without a pay increase for the executive staff."

The mayor also noted the town hasn't hired summer help to assist the Public Works Department. That means residents are experiencing the first reduction in service: There's a two-week wait for chipping services for tree limbs, something few communities provide, he said.

While that particular service didn't seem to a top priority among those assembled, McKee did urge department directors that as they identify cuts to keep in mind "not to paralyze departments with severe cuts. You can cut yourself right out of business. We don't want to do that."

This year's fireworks are a good example, he said.

While Woonsocket and North Providence eliminated the Fourth of July display, Cumberland maintained it but successfully asked the vendor for a $1,500 price cut, from $9,000 to $7,500. "We should have fireworks, for God's sake," said McKee. "We live in the United States of America."

Recreation Director Michael Crawley made the call that won the cost reduction.

McKee suggested, "We're going to do it largely with $1,000 and $1,500 items. You're not going to cut $10,000 or $15,000 at a time."

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Marcia Green, Editor-in-Chief, The Breeze newspapers

Comments

8 comments found

7/13/2009
Sell the dump/eye saw of a building across from the high school. That was a great investment. Combine services with other towns. Too many fire departments. Outsource services, they must be cheaper than what we are currently paying for. Go to a 4 day workweek.

Louise

7/13/2009
How about combining the 4 fire depts and have only 1 fire chief. Do we really need 4 in this town? My house values have gone down, but has our taxes? No! I also want to know when Nate whipple Hwy is going to finished. that will be a miracle in itself!

Robin

7/10/2009
How 'bout we rein in then liberal Mayor McKee's outrageous social spending programs like the OCYL with its staff and building overhead. This dept. programming could easily be absorbed by the Library, Parks & Rec., Senior Center, etc. saving staff and building overhead. Then there's the ill-concieved Mayoral Academy with its exhorbitant salaries (Magee@125,00) per year!!, c'mon!). RI, give us your poor and Cumberland will be responsible for educting them all! The grants and "stimulus" money is coming from some tax dollars. It doesn't grow on trees. Wake up people!

Freedom Writer

7/10/2009
How about if you fill the vacant department head positions with people that will actually do the job, rather than rely on their subordinates to do the work and then take the credit for it. The "acting director" for the rescue service has been in that position for more than 2 years, and hasn't made any progress to keep the department up with new trends. He would rather sit in his office and either facebook, play solitare on line, while his subordinates do all the work.

Don Johnson

7/9/2009
The suggestions made in the article by the various department heads amounts to a mere drop in the bucket. The lion share of the budget lies with the School Department. The School Department has a $2.3 million surplus of taxpayer money. The School Committee is going to have to make some hard decisions this year now that the teacher contract is up for negotiation. They need to stand up and support the taxpayers by negotiating in the best interests of the voters and not rubber stamp whatever the Cumberland Teacher Union wants. Negotiate a contract that expires in June 2010. Who knows what the economy will be like in three years? Why lock the taxpayers into something if the economy sours even more? The School Committee works for the people that elected them and not the Cumberland Teacher Union or Superintendent Morelle. Regionalization will save money. Start by combining services with Lincoln and then look to combine with North Providence, North Smithfield and Smithfield. Consider merging School Departments, Police, and Rescue. It will eliminate department heads but the average workers would still be employed. Purchase supplies, food services, etc. from the same vendors in bulk to save money. Windmills are ineffective in Cumberland due to a lack of constant wind speed. Solar panels would be more effective on town buildings and schools or in open spaces as Coventry is doing. Hold off selling town property until real estate markets recover.

Justanotherjoe57

7/9/2009
All pretty good ideas. I'm impressed. However, the pay per trash bag idea, horrible idea. I live next to a vacant lot that already is a dumping ground for garbage. I clean it up and put it out with my trash, but honestly, to make me pay for cleaning up someone else's trash? Let's keep Cumberland from becoming more littered with garbage than it already is. Pay as you throw is a bad idea for all of us.

Mike Griffin

7/9/2009
When is the meeting ?

Rob

7/9/2009
? Take over the school department finance director’s job. ? Have a town attorney handle the school department’s legal affairs. ? Charge residents a fee to hold a flea market weekly. (You know who you are) ? Become a site like AAA where you can get your drivers license renewed at town hall and Cumberland collects the fee. ? Take over all the duties of the fire districts for tax collection, payables, payroll and tax sales. Charge a percentage of the savings. ? Build an ice skating rink and rent the place out. ? Sell some of the open farm space and require it be used for recreational space. All the sporting groups complain they don’t have enough space. Put it to use. ? Hire a mechanic to work on the police vehicles at the dpw yard. ? Charge more for the summer rec. dept program. You can’t get all day daycare for $100 a week never mind for the summer. ? Have trash pick up every other week during the winter and fall when the trash does not stink as bad as in the summer. ? Sell the Blackstone Building. Why do we need to give them $10k a year grant. ? Eliminate the hour off every day for the police officers to work out on the public’s dime! ? Have the inmates at the ACI cut the grass and pick up the trash in town freeing up the dpw workers to take care of other business. ? Eliminate the school superintendents position. She has shown that she cannot do the job. Maybe the mayor can do better?

Mike