Starting $2 million in the hole, Scarborough sets goals

Town councilors create list of 10 things they hope to accomplish in 2012, despite fewer dollars from the state

At a goal-setting workshop Jan. 4, Scarborough Town
Council Chairman Ron Ahlquist marks his picks from
among 20 items he and his peers proposed to accomplish
in 2012.

SCARBOROUGH — The Scarborough Town Council has put together a list of 10 things it hopes to accomplish in the coming year – goals that may prove difficult to achieve given the troubled economy.

Most of the goals – such as reassessing how the town attracts and retains businesses, and working to improve the relationship between municipal government and the school system – are related in some way to the shortfalls in revenue that have marked the last few years. And just how far the council gets with its goals this year may depend on how much of a roadblock those shortfalls prove to be.

At a special workshop session held Jan. 4, Town Manager Tom Hall told councilors he “can say with great certainty” that the next school budget will wind up “short $1.3 million.” That’s thanks to the evaporation of federal stimulus money used in recent years to stopgap anemic growth in state subsidies, along with the occasional curtailment. With excise taxes trending down and other income sources, such as state revenue sharing, also expected to fall, Hall said Scarborough taxpayers may need to cough up as much as $2 million just to start FY 2013 on par wth the town’s current $70.1 million budget.

“That means that even if we flat fund in terms of the expenditure side, we [will] still have an impact on the taxpayer,” he said.

“A flat budget doesn’t mean a flat tax rate,” agreed Councilor Carol Rancourt.

That news appeared to hang over the council as it tried to lay out a battle plan for the next 12 months, while debate seemed to foreshadow what skirmishes lay ahead.

For the workshop, councilors eschewed their usual desks for a semi-circle of folding tables erected in the middle of their meeting chamber, and spent 90 minutes pitching various concerns to Hall, who fielded them from an easel set up in the center. Occasionally, he’d lob something back, in an attempt to get the councilor in question to rephrase his or her complaint in the form of an achievable goal.

In all, councilors came up with 20 areas for improvement, with many, like transit services, making repeat appearances on the annual list. Then, the four oversized notepad pages onto which Hall had written the goals were taped to the back wall of the chamber, and each councilor was armed with a different-colored marker and five votes. Some, like Chairman Ron Ahlquist and Councilor Karen D’Andrea, placed multiple checks on a single item. Others, like Rancourt and Councilor Jessica Holbrook, unwittingly cast a sixth vote. Still, in less than five minutes, the work was done and the list was whittled down to a top 10.

When the official 2012 goals are distributed at the Jan. 18 council meeting, the target items will appear in no particular order. They are, however, listed here according to the number of votes received, with notation of which councilors supported that item.

CRAFT A ‘REALISTIC’ BUDGET

(Six votes – Ahlquist (x2), Holbrook, Rancourt, Judith Roy, Richard Sullivan)

Ahlquist voiced the call for a “realistic budget,” although what that means, exactly, was not readily apparent. Judging from debate, it might’ve meant something different to each councilor.

For Rancourt, it means holding the next budget hike below the Consumer Price Index of 3.6 percent. “I would never go above the Consumer Price Index, no matter how great the need,” she said.

However, Rancourt also said she intends to stump for no staffing cuts this year, and that could be a tall order. The current budget jumped 2.89 percent from FY 2010, and even though school spending went up just 1.62 percent to $35.6 million, the rise in so-called “fixed costs,” such as union-negotiated salaries and utility payments, put 17.6 full-time equivalent (FTE) school jobs under the ax. In 2010, it took two rounds of voting to gain public support for the school budget, and even though the council restored initial cuts, what amounted to a flat-budget meant the loss of 23.1 FTE jobs.

For Holbrook, the goal is to not merely control spending growth, or even to hold the line. She’d prefer that tax bills also remain static.

“I would like a flat tax rate,” she said. “This is my third budget now and it’s [up] 3 percent every year and we just can’t keep swallowing that and shoveling that onto people.”

Holbrook’s goal may be as utopian as Rancourt’s, given the havoc it’s certain to cause in school staffing, especially when one accounts for new spending on top of the expected $2 million revenue shortfall.

Hall has already put $1.6 million in equipment requests on the table for FY 2013, as part of Scarborough’s five-year capital improvement plan. These include $1 million to the fire department (primarily for new ladders), $400,000 for five new public works vehicles and $100,000 for new police cruisers. Those purchases could be put off, but FY 2014 will include the first bond payment – expected to top $3 million, if interests rates hold – on the new Wentworth Intermediate School. Even with the retirement of old debt that year, taxpayers can count on covering a $1.7 million bill – good, Hall says, for a hike of 46 cents per $1,000 of valuation to property tax bills, all by itself.

Still, despite new outlays for capital and construction, no one on the council contradicted Ahlquist, who laid any conflict that may come between now and the final budget vote in June squarely at the feet of Gov. Paul LePage.

“I think, realistically, with this governor that we have, this is probably going to be the most difficult year that we’ve had to deal with, with the budget,” he said. “It’s going to be incredible and it’s going to happen quickly.”

‘REASSESS’ ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

(Six votes – Karen D’Andrea (x5), Roy)

There’s no question Councilor Karen D’Andrea feels strongly about economic development. After all, she dedicated all five of her goal votes to reassessing how it’s done in Scarborough.

“Economic development has changed in the past 10, 15, 25 years,” she said, adding that councilors “need to look at” the quasi-municipal Scarborough Economic Development Corp., run by Harvey Rosenfeld for all of its 26 years.

“SEDCO is really kind of operating in a sort of old-school mode of economic development,” she said. “I think we need to look at how economic development is changing.”

Rosenfeld has said in past interviews that when an economic recovery comes, it’ll come to South Portland first, because it’s cheaper to renovate a space than build new. Only when all of the prime vacant sites in surrounding towns are filled, he has said, will Scarborough again rise to the top of the list for business development. But D’Andrea does not appear keen on waiting things out, especially not when home construction is off, as well.

In FY 2009, requests for housing permits dropped in half, from 75 to 36, and have only averaged 47 per year since. In FY 2009, construction of all types in Scarborough added $89.8 million in new valuation, accounting for $1.09 million in new tax revenue, about the average over the previous decade. With Scarborough raking in $1 million in new tax revenue every year, Hall pointed out in a recent interview, his predecessors could “pretty much do whatever they wanted, because the money was always there.” Hall, however, arrived with the recession, and has had to trod a more frugal path.

For example, this year, new construction added just $14.6 million to the town-wide assessment, boosting tax coffers by a paltry $190,816. The best way to avoid budget cuts, D’Andrea said, is to grow the tax base, and that means jumpstarting business development.

“It’s revenue generation, man,” she said. “I’m totally not into cuts, I’m into generation of cash.”

To that end, D’Andrea said the town should try to lure companies that make parts for solar panels, wind turbines, LEED-certified homes and other “green” technologies. Green industries, she said, are the wave of the future, while the town is full up on retail and biotech, both of which, she's said, seem more susceptible to vagaries of the national economy. The green industry idea did not win support as a separate goal, but appeared to be what D’Andrea has in mind for her reassment of Rosenfeld’s effectiveness.

‘ALTERNATE DELIVERY’ OF SERVICES

(Four votes – Benedict, Holbrook, Rancourt, Roy)

But while D’Andrea seems intent on rattling Rosenfeld’s cage, others said it may be time to cut back on services in order to mitigate pain to taxpayers.

“We’ve got to say we’re maintaining essential services only and really look long and hard at how we can deliver [them] in a more economical way,” said Councilor Judith Roy.

“I believe that if we go at even a 2 percent increase [in the budget], we will still have to cut some essential services,” said Rancourt.

As in past years, Councilor Richard Sullivan smarted over having only bottom-line control over school spending, which by itself accounts for half of the annual budget.

“You can do all you want with the municipal side, but it’s kind of out of our hands with the school side,” he said. “We have a school board that, in the past, hasn’t been real receptive to working with the council as far as trying keep spending down.

“I think we’re looking at a huge mountain to climb,” said Sullivan. “We need some cooperation and some help from the school board to help keep the cost to taxpayers reasonable.”

Sullivan then brushed off Hall’s entreaty that the council “express its expectations” to the school board. “In my four years [on the council], I haven’t seen a lot of listening going on at that end,” he said.

“Well, I don’t think we can blame the school board at all for this, not when the state curtails so much of their money,” D’Andrea countered.

Still, Sullivan would not be mollified, saying that town employees go “year after year with little or no increases” while “teachers keep getting theirs.” Sullivan expressed little hope of taxpayers getting the upper hand in future contract negotiations. Instead, he said, councilors should work with the school board to cut costs by sharing workers, as it now splits some IT functions. For example, he said, the school department has a facilities director, while the fire station must “hire out” to maintain its HVAC system.

“Beyond facilities, we should really look very, very hard at further ways to share and cooperate,” agreed Hall, suggesting formation of a joint working group of councilors and school board members to smooth the way to better integrating the town’s big two fiefdoms.

”I’ve run into roadblocks in some respect working with my counterparts from the school,” he said. “It would be helpful to have council members and school board members all part of the same conversation.”

Posed as a separate goal, the joint work group drew no support. Still, consolidation talks seem likely, preparatory to outright cuts. Roy suggested the town start by hiring a joint purchasing agent. The position was created two years ago, but never filled.

“It would be an expenditure, but certainly having inter-, intra- and regional buying enhanced would be a savings,” she said.

Meanwhile, Rancourt saw Roy's purchasing agent and raised her emergency dispatch services, employee benefits and energy production, the latter being a key component of the long-term energy plan adopted by the council last year.

COORDINATE PUBLIC TRANSIT

(Three votes – Ahlquist, Rancourt, Roy)

A perennial council goal – to work with neighboring towns to create a public transportation system – is a concept that may finally take off this year, thanks to budget crunches elsewhere.

Last fall, the transit committee that runs bus services for Biddeford, Saco and Old Orchard Beach held a public hearing, at which it floated the idea of cutting evening and weekend runs of its intercity service to Portland.

The shuttle averaged nearly 2,500 riders per month last year, and has reportedly added hundreds of riders each month in the current fiscal year. However, service director Al Schutz says the intercity run is on track to lose more than $130,000.

The bus runs though Scarborough, making four separate stops that have been semi-formalized only over the past year. Previously, the bus stopped along Route 1 wherever somebody successfully flagged it down. To pare its loses, the service has offered Scarborough a seat on its governing committee, along with a more established route, for $75,000.

Councilors have yet to act on that funding request, but may do so in the near future.

“We’ve had some good stuff happen in the past year and I’d like to keep it going,” said Ahlquist. “As things get tough out there, a lot of people become very dependent on public transportation and I would hope we can make that a priority.”

“Because of the economics, there are more and more people out there needing public transit on a regular, scheduled basis, with kiosks,” agreed Roy.

EXAMINE TOWN COMMITTEES

(Three votes – Ahlquist, Holbrook, Sullivan)

Holbrook said all 29 town committees should get a once-over from the council, with an eye to making sure each is on the same page with the town’s ruling body.

“A lot of these committees have very outdated mission statements and purposes,” she said. “Frankly, some of them need absolute direction. They’re unclear and unsure on what they need to be doing.”

One of the council goals in 2009 was committee-member training. As a result, a new procedures manual was developed. Now, says Hall, most committees are producing meeting minutes, although Sullivan complained these still are not getting forwarded to the council.

“I have no doubt that we have committees that really do nothing,” said Hall. “Part of this [process], I hope, may be doing away with some committees.”

Holbrook pointed out that at least one group, the Cable TV Committee, currently has no members.

REVIEW BUSINESS ORDINANCES

(Three votes – Benedict, Holbrook, Sullivan)

New council member James Benedict was silent through most of the goal-setting session, but came to life when discussing the tribulations of Scarborough’s business community.

“You hear it all the time, Scarborough is a tough place to do business, between what you’re allowed to do, and what you’re not allowed to do,” he said.

Benedict cited numerous examples of zoning rules getting in the way of development, dwelling on the story of Cracker Barrel, which hoped to build near Cabela’s. When demands for the color of its roof became too odious, the company bolted across the line to South Portland.

Benedict also suggested that zoning rules are at least partly to blame for the failure of Haigis Parkway to blossom into an economic engine. A September 2001 study predicted that within 20 years of a $10 million utility upgrade made by the town, the 308 acres of the Haigis Parkway zone would be home to 29 businesses employing 2,600 people in 1.1 million square-feet of buidling space. Almost a decade after project completion, a drive down the parkway will show how far that prediction missed the mark.

“To me, it’s ridiculous that we don’t have takers in there, and there’s got to be a reason for it, because location certainly isn’t the reason,” said Benedict. “That’s one of the best locations there is, because you’re right by the Interstate.”

Benedict asked to have all town ordinances reviewed to see what rules can be relaxed or  removed, wherever burning issues of the past no longer seem relevant, or may now be deemed to do more harm than good. However, when Rancourt suggested the ordinance committee, which she chairs, could not possibly slog through that much paperwork in one year, he accepted Hall’s recommendation to focus this year only on those ordinances directly related to business interests.

ASSESS LICENSES AND FEES

(Two votes – Benedict, Sullivan)

While Benedict relented in his call to review all town ordinances, he held fast on his demand that the town's fee structure get an overhaul.

“We’ve got to get businesses in here,” he said. “They’re out there and they can make money here, but there are a lot things that don’t make sense, like our schedule of fees.”

On that point, he got no argument.

INVENTORY TOWN PROPERTY

(Two votes – Benedict, Holbrook)

Although Holbrook’s idea to mark all town-owned property and open space lands with “appropriate signage” got scuttled, based on the presumed cost, her call to create an inventory list made the final cut.

“A big part of our income is property taxes – where are we at with the percentage of how much is non-taxed property?” she asked. “What is public lands, state lands, open spaces?”

But the idea is not merely to wrap the taxman’s hands around lands currently beyond his grasp. A good inventory, said Holbrook, will help the town better manage future acquisition and uses.

“Right now, we have lots of areas of town where there’s lots of conservation land and no recreation, or visa-versa,” she said.

Hall intimated that this may be the easiest goal to achieve, given that much of the mapwork already has been done.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION

(Two votes – Holbrook, Rancourt)

Holbrook also suggested the town get on the stick regarding historic preservation.

"I've heard it enough around town that it's a shame that we are losing so much of our older, historic buildings," she said.

Like establishing a transit system, creating a historic preservation ordinance has been a perennial on the annual goals list. According to Roy, the town began work trying to adapt Portland's Historic Preservation Ordinance more than eight years ago. That work has been stalled in the ordinance committee ever since.

"We did some work on it last year," said Rancourt, "but we never got anywhere with it." 

IMPLEMENT PEDESTRIAN STUDY

(Two votes – Rancourt, Sullivan)

Although she claims to cry every time she thinks of certain lost buildings in town, Rancourt's real bugaboo is the Oak Hill Pedestrian Study, adopted by the council in August following many months of committee work. The plan seeks to make neighborhoods surrounding the town office/school complex more friendly to foot traffic. Study proposals included the creation of additional crosswalks and construction of traffic-calming measures, such as median strips and pedestrian “islands.” Rancourt, who was an active part of the study committee, said it's time to implement some of its suggestions, rather than let the work collect dust on a planning office shelf.

“Some of those things can be done with little or no money – maybe some paint,” she said. 

A CLOSER LOOK

Scarborough councilors sound off on the town‘s FY 2013 budget:

“It’s revenue generation, man. I’m totally not into cuts, I’m into generation of cash.” – Karen D’Andrea.

“There should be no reduction in funding such that it would result in staff cuts in the school department.” – Carol Rancourt.

“With this governor that we have, this is probably going to be the most difficult year we’ve had to deal with, as a budget. It’s going to be incredible.” – Ron Ahlquist.

“We’ve got to say we’re maintaining essential services only and really look long and hard at how we can deliver [them] in a more economical way.” – Judith Roy.

“We’re looking at a huge mountain to climb. We need some help from the school board to help keep the cost to taxpayers reasonable, but they never listen to us.” – Richard Sullivan Jr.

“I would like a flat tax rate. The budget is up 3 percent every year and we can’t just keep swallowing that and shoveling that on people.” – Jessica Holbrook.

“We’ve got to get businesses in here. They’re out there and they can make money here, but there are a lot things that don’t make sense, like our schedule of fees.” – James Benedict.

A CLOSER LOOK

MISSING THE CUT

With everything thrown at the wall, it was inevitable some things would not stick. Four goals garnered only a single vote. Those included providing more support for tourism (supported by Rancourt), identifying new sources of revenue (Benedict), improving and expanding the use of information technology (Roy) and creating a debt management policy (Ahlquist).

Finally, six ideas were abandoned during the voting process, even by the councilors who had proposed them. These included: Develop green building standards, create a sidewalk maintenance policy, evaluate capital project priorities (inlcuing creation of an equipment replacement schedule), form a joint Town Council/school board cooperation committee, post signs identifying all public lands and encourage green industry growth.