Water Department Budget

What a mess.  Can it get worse?  (Preliminary note:  all the figures in this posting are rounded.)

The selectboard approved a budget for the water department that shows $176,000 in revenues, $275,000 in expenses, and a $99,000 subsidy from the taxpayers. (And they try to disguise the subsidy by listing it as $68,000 under "tax levy subsidy" and $31,000 under "tax levy debt service (subsidy)."  A subsidy is a subsidy is a subsidy, folks.) 

The finance committee approved a budget showing $187,000 in revenues, $250,000 in expenses, and a $63,000 subsidy from the taxpayers.  The revenues are based on numbers from the water commissioners, adjusted upwards to reflect that everything is billed and collected, which hasn't happened in the past but should.  The expenses reflect primarily cutting salaries/wages and corresponding reductions in insurance costs. 

So the town meeting will decide which way to go.  Be there.

Ah, but there are 3 other items on the agenda that would change all this.  First, a citizens' petition to have the taxpayers pay all the debt service, forever.  That would amount to a taxpayer payment of $117,000 this year, would reduce the department expenses accordingly and result in a surplus of $18,000 on the selectmen's numbers, or $54,000 on the finance committee's numbers, which surplus would go to reduce the user fees, not back to the taxpayers.  Talk about a reach.  The selectboard and the finance committee are opposed to this proposal.  But if the voters foolishly approved it, it would of course change the water department budget, so the budget listed in the warrant and described above would have to be modified at the meeting; otherwise you'd have two hopelessly inconsistent voter actions.  

Second is a citizens' petition to cap the taxpayer subsidy at $40,000.  If the voters approved that, again you'd have to modify the budget listed in the warrant accordingly to avoid the hopeless inconsistency.

Third is a citizens' petition to charge the Great Barrington water users, since they don't pay taxes in Egremont, 150% of what the Egremont users pay.  That would also cause the budget listed in the warrant to be modified.

So how does the selectboard propose to deal with this?  They finally woke up to the first citizens' petition, realized that a vote on it had to precede the vote on the budget listed in the warrant and therefore moved it up in the agenda order so that it's just before that vote.  But they didn't move up the other two citizens' petitions, even after being expressly told that was equally necessary.  Why?  It can't be oversight, so the only reasons I can think of are stupidity or deviousness.  Will our selectboard ever start doing what makes sense?

Incidentally, I'm told that town counsel has advised that the 150% proposal is "illegal" or "not valid" or something like that, because you can't charge different rates to different users.  I've found nothing in Massachusetts law to support that conclusion.  And other town water departments in the state charge different rates to different users, based on seasonal variations, business versus residential use, elderly discounts, low income discounts, early pay discounts, etc.  Are they all illegal too?  So long as there's a rational basis for charging different rates to different users, it's okay.  And there sure is a rational basis for charging Great Barrington users more.