See the Villager Article on Prop 46 -HERE-

During the Tuesday May 6th Woodstock Board of Finance meeting the board approved sending the proposed budget to the annual town meeting despite the fact that the budget as proposed is in violation of Proposition 46 on several counts based on the Town Attorney’s legal opinion letter dated March 5th, 2008.

What are these violations?

Well for starters $8,978 of emergency expenses from 2007-'08 approved as “one-time” expenses, and by definition non-recurring, are included in the roll-over to 2008-'09 thereby becoming another perpetual annuity.  This is in direct conflict with the legal opinion.  Further, legal judgments of $15,445 are also being “rolled over”.  What are these?  They result from contested assessments that were overturned.  The really neat part of this is that they are part of the Grand List that was used to add to revenues (taxes) in the first place but have now been found to be too high and so the monies had to be returned to the taxpayers involved but you get to replace that as part of the settlement not just one time but ad infinitum.   Try this kind of slight-of-hand with deductions on your income tax return and you get free meals at a government facility for awhile.

Then we have the $195,272 in emergency expenses that have been accumulated since 2004 and carried over and compounding year after year that you’re still paying for – not the one-time expenses you approved.

For added measure, remember last year’s increase in Transportation, a sort of state mandated program that Lindsey Paul recently acknowledged is only mandated as a “program” but for which the management and spending is at the discretion of the local BOE, it “required” $213,007 dollars in increased taxes last year.  This year the spending requirement is dropping by $75,679, but don’t worry you're still paying the full $213,007.  

You’re also still paying for the debt service at the rate it was in 2004-'05 when it was $174,423 higher than it is today – this is another of those exceptions that is only counted when it goes up and never when it goes down.  Barbara Rich insists that Proposition 46 only allows for increases, the term “necessary to cover” just doesn’t seem to be understood.  Remember that the next time you’re asked to approve a bonding issue, once in, you get to pay forever.

I haven’t gotten to the issue of the blatant errors, or the legal judgments, or impact of the reductions in “state mandated programs” from prior years that were rolled over, and reductions in debt service that was never acknowledged but allowed to roll-over at its maximums- and I could go on.

So what is all this costing you this year? Try about $980,000. So when you wonder, "How in the world could our taxes be going up 5.4%?", reread this.

Dave Richardson
North Woodstock