By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Under the budget process stipulated in Caribou’s new city charter, two of three public forums have already been held on the proposed budgets and capital expense reports for every municipal department, from the airport to the fire and ambulance department.
As stated in the charter, each Caribou department’s expense budget and capital expense budget need to be finalized by the start of the new fiscal year; as Caribou fiscal year coincides with the calendar year, Caribou’s budget and capital expense budget needs to be approved by Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013.
“I think it’s going as well as can be expected, given it’s our first time through this budget process under the new charter,” explained Caribou Mayor Kenneth Murchison. The first public forum was held on Oct. 15, followed by a second meeting on Oct. 22. The last public forum will take place on Monday, Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. in the Councilor’s Chambers.
Department by department, the Caribou City Council, department heads and anyone who wished to attend the forum went through the proposed budgets pretty much line by line in a very conversational manner.
Large expenses and relatively small ones were questioned, from public comments that the fire and ambulance department should be charging other communities more per capita, setting aside funds for the next revaluation process, and the request to see how much it would cost to only fund recreation department activities that could be contained within the facility’s four walls.
At this point in the budget process, even relatively small expenses were met with questions.
Councilor Gary Aiken, for example, expressed his opinion that the city should be paying for professional dues for city employees only when they’re part of the job — but not for memberships in service clubs and other organizations that don’t directly impact the employee’s occupation.
“It’s been a good, frank discussion at many points,” Murchison said.
Speaking as a past Caribou city councilor, Chair of the Citizens for Responsible City Management Group Doug Morrell expressed that he would have loved to have the discussion being generated through these public forums when he was on the council.
“It’s a good dialogue, and it’s something that’s never been there before,” Morrell said. “With the proposed budgets right now — some are higher and some are lower, and it’s anyone guess right now as far as where we’ll end up.”
“There’s been a lot of good suggestions put forth by the citizens, good solid questions, and at the end of the day, the Council’s going to have to recognize the concerns and do something about it,” Morrell added.
Following the public forums, a public hearing will be held on Monday, Nov. 12 on the proposed department operational expense and capital budgets, following a vote on Monday, Dec. 10 to adopt the budgets.
No later than mid February, the process will begin for the city to review the income side of each budget; before the new charter’s adoption, the expense and income budgets were historically viewed side by side.
“Now, adopting more of a zero-based budgeting technique of analyzing expense first and developing budgets based on that before looking at the revenue side — it’s a fundamental change in the way things have been done,” the mayor said. “I think we’re all on pins and needles to see how it’s going to work out.”
As per the new charter, a complete list of each department’s expense budget and capital expense budget can be viewed by visiting cariboumaine.org and clicking on “Proposed 2013 Budgets,” both part one and part two.
