Thursday, November 29, 2007

credibility of the town's government had once again taken a hit

From Michael Morton's article in the Milford Daily News:

Faced with a recently discovered $590,000 school funding gap, councilors voted last night to plug the hole with money from the town's savings account.

Although the Finance Committee recommended that the schools be held accountable by giving up $290,000 from their budget, and taking $300,000 from the fiscal stabilization fund, the council decided that it did not yet have enough information to assign responsibility.


Read the full article here recapping the Town Council meeting of 11/28/07.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Tax Hearing Q&A

Councilors Pfeffer and McGann with their initial questions on how many seniors apply for deferments for tax relief.

Time: 2 minutes, 14 seconds



MP3 File

live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Motion to balance the discovered discrepancy in the School budget for FY 07 with transfer of $590,000 from stabilization.

The auditors are scheduled to come to the Town Council at a future meeting to address the problem and make recommendations.

Role call -> 9-0 motion passed

Live blogging -Town Council meeting 11/28/07

Deficit in FY 09 will be far greater than FY 08 per Nutting.

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Motion to allocate the Hotel/Motel Tax per Nutting recommendation to next agenda.

Passed 7-2.

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

place holder for additional recorded citizens comment

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Citizens comment

Michael LeBlanc

place holder for recorded comment

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Citizens Comment

Susan Spears

place holder for recorded comment on use of open space/community preservation

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

placeholder for recording of comment by Historical Commission representative

Live Blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Jeff Nutting reviews the proposal for the Town Council to change the allocation of the Hotel Tax. He proposes to use $90,000 for an architect to provide an assessment on repairs required for the library. He also proposes to use $200,000 to make repairs to the old Senior Center in preparation for the Museum.

The Town Council would need to make a vote to appropriate the money for these uses. Otherwise, the money would go into the open space fund as originally allocated.

The vote would need to take place before the tax rate is set at the meeting next week.

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Tax rate - Citizen Portion

Ken Norman

Michael Leblanc is an honorable man, I have worked with him, he does good analysis. I would caution you to use the information he has provided carefully... Let's get Mr Whalen and Mr LeBlanc together and see what they can come up with.

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Tax rate - Citizen portion

Michael Doherty

"If there is a problem with assessments, fix that problem, do not address it with it a split tax rate... Franklin needs to be competitive with India as well as Indiana... You increase the pie by selling the properties we are trying to, get them on the tax role."

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Tax Rate Citizen comment portion

Michael LeBlanc speaking

Commercial/Industrial properties

64 properties sold from 2004 to 2007, reduced to 54 for analysis
pre-assessed value of these properties sold $264
difference is 96 million, assessment 36% below what they were sold for

9 of the properties, had an assessed value higher than the sale price
55 were below, Franklin Village was the single biggest difference

family homes

895 properties, presale 384 million 5%
262 were assessed higher than sale
633 were valued less than sale price


From Kevin - Board of Assessors in response to questions from M LeBlanc

more than 50% of the properties provide the information on income and expenses
if they don't supply the information, the business would waive their right to appeal the tax assessment, they may jeopardize their appeal at the state level, they are also subject to a $50 penalty.


there were several properties in the Industrial Park that were assessed for 45.7 million, sold for 67.8 million; the current year assessments went down to 42 million.

Summary: The business are effectively getting a tax break of about $2.5 million that the residents are picking up.

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Tax rate Q&A

Jeff Nutting proposed to pick the properties that sold around $1 million, which would be about 20 or so properties, to re-do the calculation and include that years assessed value for those properties to make a determination as to whether there is an undervaluation of business commercial properties.

Live blogging - Town Council Meeting 11/28/07

Tax rate Q&A

Can you re-cast this spreadsheet to show the assessed valuation at the time of the sale? Could you do that for us?
from Stephen Whalen during this discussion

After some clarification, yes, they can and will do that.