AUBURN — It might make sense to combine the city’s planning, economic development and community development departments under one budget, Mayor Jonathan LaBonte suggested Saturday.
“If we want to have a one-stop shop for business development, for poverty improvement for neighborhood development, it would bring all of those units under one umbrella,” LaBonte said. “I believe there would be efficiencies in terms of administrative costs. It would streamline communications.”
It was one idea that came out of a six-hour, 50-minute review of nine city department budgets at Auburn Hall on Saturday.
Councilors reviewed proposed budgets for the Auburn Public Library, Assessing, Public Works, Engineering, Police, Fire, Planning, Parks and Recreation and City Clerk departments at the special meeting. All together, those budgets represent 46 percent of the proposed $32.7 million municipal spending plan.
That amount is up from the $31.9 million budget councilors approved last year. Combined with a proposed $36.3 million in school spending, county taxes and intergovernmental spending, the overall municipal budget would be $72.85 million.
That would push the property-tax rate from $19.39 to $20.52 per $1,000 of property value, an increase of about $158 on a $140,000 home.
A second budget session is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 5. Interim City Manager Don Gerrish said he expects councilors to hear from the city’s remaining departments at that meeting. Councilors will host several other meetings to discuss individual budgets after that.
“I think it’s very important that you make no decisions now, not until you’ve heard from all the departments,” Gerrish said Saturday.
Instead, councilors listened and asked a few questions about potential spending increases — including $4,900 for 15 bulletproof vests for Auburn police officers, City Clerk cost estimates of $12,000 for this year’s June and November elections and a proposed $17,000 increase for the Fire Department to maintain the Tower 1 ladder truck.
“For truck maintenance, that increase is crazy,” Councilor Leroy Walker said. “Maybe that thing should be wrapped in bubble wrap and only brought out if a fire is on the fourth or fifth floor. At this kind of rate, the city will go broke in no time.”
LaBonte suggested councilors start coming up with new ideas for cutting spending, similar to his suggestion for combining departments.
“We are going to have to find savings somewhere,” he said. “I like line-by-line detail as much as anybody, but we’re not going to save thousands at a time that way.”
CIty of Auburn FY 13 Proposed Budget as Presented 031912 – DRAFT
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- City Councilor Mary LaFontaine, center, discusses Fire Department spending at Auburn Hall on Saturday during a daylong budget session. At left is Auburn Mayor Jonathan LaBonte, and at right, Councilor David Young.
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