Special Board of Aldermen 6-13-2022 Page 13
correctly, the number on your calculation on line item 14 if I’m reading this correctly, 14 total appropriations. That's
based upon the Charter provision of 56C which says total expenditures. Is that correct?
John Griffin, CFO/Treasurer/Tax Collector
Madam President - John Griffin, CFO/Treasurer/Tax Collector. That’s correct.
Alderman Jette
And the number on line item 25 - total proposed appropriations for Fiscal Year 2023, does not include any - there
have been no exceptions. Charter Provision 56D allows for exceptions as Attorney Bolton pointed out, the principle
and interest on municipal bonds and capital expenditures, you haven’t deducted anything from that number by using
those exceptions. Is that also correct?
John Griffin, CFO/Treasurer/Tax Collector
That's correct. The first line item #2 general fund that includes all the debt service, the general fund. Line #3 -
enterprise funds, that’s including all the debt service. So it’s only when you get a tighter differential between the
allowable and the proposed would you ever even consider coming in with - you don’t need it. You don’t need to have
the Board of Aldermen exclude that debt.
| think if | may, just a little bit of history because | asked this question of Deputy Corporation Counsel Dorothy Clarke, |
asked did we ever come in and ask for an exclusion. And whoever was on the Board in ‘03, ‘04, ‘O05 where as you
recall a lot of inflation, the first thing that Administrative Services Director Maureen Lemieux did was ask for the
exclusion so you didn’t have to worry about it. As Alderman Clemons appropriately said about getting a windfall, it
was subject to check. The City received $20 million from it was called “a Claremont Decision — education”. Those
members who were staunch - I’m voting no on every exclusion, voted for it because they could see the benefits of
putting $20 million in an account or in a fund. | just wanted to share that because | waiting to say that, but you only
want to exclude if you’re close or think you’re close because subject to my understanding, you can only exclude once
and that’s why Director Lemieux took the whole thing. Let’s do the debt service, the capital, the bonding, let’s throw it
all in as an exclusion then you don’t have to worry about it.
Alderman Jette
So when you say you can only exclude it once per Fiscal Year?
John Griffin, CFO/Treasurer/Tax Collector
Correct.
Alderman Jette
Could | ask you, do you have any idea if we did exclude principle and interest for municipal bonds, which also includes
school bonds and capital expenditures, do you have any idea how much money that would be?
John Griffin, CFO/Treasurer/Tax Collector
The debt service on general funds is about $17 million. Debt service on Wastewater is about $4 million subject to
check. Solid Waste is another $2.3 or 4. The capital is interesting because we usually don’t budget for capital and |
was going to get into that in a minute other than the $1 million or so dollars that you see. Usually what we do during
the year is when we need to we introduce bonding legislation. So what I'd like to add is to the extent we need more
bonding in Fiscal ’23, that’s going to add to the supplemental appropriations and will subtract from the $113 million.
That’s how the math works. So henceforth every time there’s a bonding authorization, I’m going to explain it in my
fiscal note that you’re — actually I’m going to explain it in the submittal of the bonding resolution how much you're
under the cap because it just keeps subtracting from the capital - the difference between the available cap and what
we have.
Alderman Jette
Okay. So it sounds to me that given the constraints of our current spending cap of Charter provisions, there seems to
