Special Board of Aldermen 6-13-2022 Page 17
It was a citizens’ initiative that put this on the ballot, yes.
Alderman Klee
So the wording of it is how the citizens put it there not how it was necessarily worked appropriately and so on. | just
wanted to kind of get that — | thought that was the case but | didn’t want to make that statement without...
Steve Bolton, Corporation Counsel
One of our frequent commentators claimed to have been the sole author. | have heard other people say they
contributed to the drafting of it. Frankly if | were in the room when it was drafted, | would not be taking credit at all.
Alderman Klee
| completely understand that. And then to the comment about we’ve never really gone over the spending cap. Would
it be fair to say we don’t go over the spending cap because when we do our budgeting we’re keeping that in mind? In
other words, we didn’t take care of necessarily the streets, or the paving, and so on. That was something that
happened after this kind of got lifted because we knew it didn’t fall within the spending cap. So to say that we did not
hit the spending cap is probably kind of an unfair. We went forward with knowing the spending cap was there. Would
you feel comfortable saying that Mr. Griffin?
John Griffin, CFO/Treasurer/Tax Collector
Yes Madam President and members of the Committee. Having presided kind of when the recession of the second
great recession was mid-way 2011, 2012, 2013, inflation was very low, cost of living wasn’t as high. Clearly the first
thing | do for the Mayor is calculate the spending cap because | knew what the numbers were. | kept track of it so |
could definitely provide how tight the submittals were. | think one was under $1,000 one year. So if you start with the
spending cap, you reduce spending to get there.
Tax cap on the other hand, you know what your revenue is to be able to spend. Spending caps are a little bit
problematic and decide as Attorney Bolton says, deciding what’s in and out of the general fund is going to be a
challenge but that is okay. You start with that. So when | first came here, | advised the Mayor this is the total amount
and we had to work with the Police Department, Fire Department, Department of Public Works and there really wasn’t
a lot of money available to do anything material. As you’ve heard, we used to have a $2 million capital improvement
budget where $1 million was given to pave roads. Just not effective. The other million — well what you see now, we
don’t have a robust capital improvement program. That’s why you get a lot of bonding authorizations. It was tight. It
was tight. We were fiscally constrained because as you know, the CPIU at the time that was changed to the S&LIPD.
It really kind of chocked the ability to add to the budget.
Alderman Klee
So just for clarification, basically we backed into the budget and said this is all we can spend, not necessarily this is all
we have without going up on taxes, but all we can spend based on these constraints. Is that correct?
John Griffin, CFO/Treasurer/Tax Collector
There was a significant limitation on the ability to spend on things that were needed.
Alderman Klee
Again, that is what makes the difference between a tax cap versus a spending cap. They are not the same thing. A
tax cap, we could stay within the tax cap if we have increased revenue and that would not affect the people. A
spending cap actually can affect how we can do our job to keep our infrastructure straight. Is that correct?
John Griffin, CFO/Treasurer/Tax Collector
Correct. Both are challenging — tax caps. There are several individuals that love to come in and add revenue streams
and then you find out early it costs you more to get the revenue that what is intended. But they’re both very
challenging having like | said, resided in 2-1/2 in Massachusetts it’s challenging. But | do have that information and |
see some folks that wouldn’t mind sharing it because it’s literally lifting the information off all these budgets ona
spreadsheet and you can see. It’s very challenging to do supplement appropriations when you don’t have any room
