Mayor Ruthanne Fuller will be delivering her proposed $495 million city budget for fiscal year 2020 to the Newton City Council Tuesday. Jenna Fisher at Patch has a preview.
The mayor said last year she has 12 priorities and outlined during her speech how funding would be doled out to help those priorities. This year, the priorities remain, but her the new budget comes amid heated negotiations between the educator union and the Newton School Committee as they work on a new contract by the time the bridge contract expires this summer.
The mayor says she is increasing “investment” in the Planning department. According to the Newton website we already have 29 people working in the planning department. I don’t doubt that they are very busy but they seem to be busy overseeing massive development and re-zoning of every property in Newton that many in the city don’t seem to want.
To be fair,
The only way to solve the billion dollar pension shortfall is
1. More density, more property taxes, more businesses
2. Higher property taxes
3. Find cost saving the school budget(holy grail)
I guess 1. is the easiest way forward.. regardless of potential negative consequences
This budget proposal shows an unprecedented annual increase
from $412 million to $495 million. The year before it increased by $17 million. Ruth is supposed to be fiscally conservative.
These increases are not justified and unfair to middle class
families. Who gave the mayor this spending mandate. She herself
is giddy when she talks about the budget. She says warmly that
SHE wants to make Newton the best in every way. Many
Newton residents believe the city is a good one but do not want to be taxed out of their homes.
Colleen
Its obvious that the mayor has national ambitions, Newton is a great place to kick start her credentials (social justice, global warming, higher density)
Did we really vote these as our top 3 issues?
So all people who care about social justice, global warming and helping people find a place to live have national ambitions?
Under Proposition 2 1/2, the annual increases are actually quite precedented.
…Depends who you talk to, of course. Many people I know seem to be quite enthusiastic about providing homes for their kids, our seniors, our teachers, our firefighters, our police.
A lot of buzz will be around development and weed, but I think the defining aspect of Fuller’s time as mayor will be what she does with education. We’re losing our edge as one of the top systems in the state, and if Fuller can restore it, I think she wins over a lot of folks like me who are admittedly skeptical of her.
Greg,
The mayor’s priority should be to RESIDENTS of newton
– low crime
– good schools
– low property taxes
– responsive local government for resident immediate concerns
– keeping city streets and roads in good working condition
After these are addressed, then other issues can be looked into
Other than low property taxes I believe she touched — and regularly touches —-all those bases.
How about the following base, Greg?I’d love to hear from Mark Welch about what he’s expecting. Not much, I’m sure. Which is highly unfortunate, considering we’re losing trees and green space at a phenomenal rate. It will soon be time to change the name of our fair (how much longer?) city from “The Garden” to “The Developer’s”.
There seems to be some misunderstanding about the proposed budget.
As outlined in the beginning of Mayor Fuller’s letter, the proposed operating budget for the city is $430.3 million.
The total enterprise budget funds for water, sewer and stormwater is $62.1 million. Those funds are derived from fees, not property taxes. In addition, there is also a $4.1 million budget for Community Preservation Funds derived from the CPA fee.
The total of all three is indeed $495 million. But the correct comparison to previous years’ operating budgets is to use the $430.3 million figure.