As I have said before, it turns out that “No doesn’t mean NO!” when it comes to SB2 Budget Committee deliberations because of a “technical flaw” in RSA 32 (and to a smaller degree, RSA 40). While BudComms must deal at General Ledger line levels (we are prohibited from just “lopping off” or “adding to” the net bottom lines of municipal or school district budgets, after our presented budget(s) are accepted, modified, or denied by the Legislative Body (er, the voters in a given town), the Governing Bodies (Selectmen, School Boards) then submitted the finalized budgets to the NH Department of Revenue Administration (“DRA”) using forms known as “MS-Form”). Essentially, they are “roll up” forms – instead of listing all of the individual line items, they simply show aggregated totals of the department budgets (e.g., the entire Police budget in a single line).
Once done, and the “Purpose” (very important word, that) has been set, the Governing Bodies are then able to transfer monies from one lower level GL account line item to another – including into those line items that BudComms may have zeroed out. So, I’m looking to crowdsource for a bit of help.
I lamented discovering this in the RSAs last season as well as with multiple calls over hours of time in talking with an employee (whom I greatly respect but shall go nameless for obvious reasons). Effectively, this loophole CAN neuter all of the efforts and all of the hours spent by a BudComm (yes, the Selectmen in my town did so this year – you know who you are and that at least one of you visit the ‘Grok on a regular basis). What I used to say upon setting fiscal policy (as opposed to operational policy set by the Governing Bodies) is that “no meant NO!” – the appropriated Purpose of a then zeroed out line item was null and void; tax monies could not be spent on that item.
Yeah, so much for that.
SO, not wishing to participate in an ongoing farce, I’ve created an LSR, for which I do have a couple of elected sponsors to plug this hole. While I and GraniteGrok are rightly perceived as quite partisan on the side of folks that share our values, I’m looking at this as a TECHNICAL correction and neither Right or Left. It’s pretty much done – just reviewing it a number of times to make sure my use of grammar is correct and not allowing it to be used for “other” purposes and trying to keep the Law of Unintended Consequences at bay.
I AM looking for a few more sponsors in both the NH House and Senate – would you be willing? I also know there are a number of ‘Grok Readers who are either past or current BudCommers that aren’t in the NH House or Senate but if you know a Rep or a Senator that might be willing to sign up, please let me know! As always, Skip@GraniteGrok.com
I’ll be posting the actual LSR and proposed Narrative / testimony a bit later when the slight tweaks that are left are complete.
Thanks!
