Now that the Gilford tax bills for the first half of 2019 have been issued, are most Gilford taxpayers happy, or at least reasonably content, with the level of taxes in the town? I suggest that many are not and that some of the reasons for the ever-increasing taxes in Gilford can easily be ascertained by paying close attention to a few things.
A recent story in The Sun dealt with the transfer station cost-overrun fiasco, only one of several projects under the purview of the town administrator.New Hampshire is great for many reasons, not the least of which is the general absence of an entrenched political class. We usually get to vote on our elected officials every two years and can turn them out on very short notice. And we do not pay most of our elected officials very much. The result is that we typically rely on citizens to volunteer to serve in our government for little or no pay. But sometimes, we end up getting what we pay for.
Gilford has three selectmen. It does not appear that any of them have significant formal training or practical experience in running a private business. So, like most elected officials, they must rely on their staff to advise them and recommend proper courses of action. How has that worked out for us?
The principal members of the town staff on which the selectmen rely are the town administrator and the town finance director. The latest budget indicates that for our little town, the total cost of those two positions, including very generous benefits, is $265,922. In a town of a little more than 7,000 residents, what is the justification for having two such highly-paid positions rather than one position that should be able to provide the needed functions in both areas at much lower cost?
Even putting aside for the moment the exorbitant cost of these two positions, has the town received its monies’ worth in their performance? You decide.
The town financediirector is best known for having formerly been the finance director of Belknap County, and during his tenure in that position the Belknap County financial statements, for which he was presumably responsible, showed many hundreds of thousands of dollars of accounts receivable due to the nursing home as assets, when in fact they were actually totally worthless and uncollectible because the insurance and Medicare and Medicaid claims on which those receivables were supposedly based were submitted after the respective deadlines for submission — so they ultimately had to be written off. But in the meantime, the financial statements containing those worthless assets were issued to the public, banks, and bond buyers, all of whom were deceived as to the true financial condition of the county.
Under the direction of the town administrator, Gilford voters were induced to approve a bond issue in 2014 for expansion and renovation of the Town Hall and Police Department for $1,213,000 that was ultimately issued and sold to investors long before the town had (a) final plans and specifications for the project; or (b) any fixed price construction contract. The ultimate result was major cost overruns required to be borne by the taxpayers. The fact that there were no final plans or specifications or fixed price contracts in hand was not disclosed to the voters asked to approve the bond issue. Why did the selectmen not put a stop to this incompetence?
A similar boondoggle has occurred once again with an additional $400,000 just voted on in the March election to “complete the Recycle Center and the construction of the Transfer Station.” Only time will tell whether this additional amount will ultimately be sufficient to complete the project.
One may be reminded of Einstein’s axiom to the effect that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome.
Finally, the town administrator is believed to be the author of various special spending warrant articles that appear on the town’s annual ballot. Many of these are clearly described on the ballots in a misleading fashion, such as “This sum to come from fund balance and no amount shall be raised from taxation.” In the election this past March, the total amount raised under warrant articles with such misleading language was $992,381. But what is the “fund balance” and how is it not taxation?
The real story is that “fund balance” is nothing more than tax money collected in prior years and not spent. Warrants with such language are misleading at best. If so much tax money was collected in prior years but not spent, what is the justification for not returning that unspent money to the taxpayers in the form of lower taxes in the current year?
But the selectmen continue to allow the town administrator to operate in this fashion. Are they proud at their oversight on our behalf?
I guess we must ultimately fall back on the language of the Bible: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
