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June 29, 2006
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June 29, 2006 |
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EDITORIAL Consider values in budget choices Village Council members have set themselves a wise and ambitious course by asking Village Manager Eric Swansen to educate them on how best to address the current Village deficit, examining in detail various options for raising revenues and cutting expenses in all aspects of Village operation. Swansen has been impressive in the thoroughness and clarity of his budget presentations at recent Council meetings, and he and Council members are clearly doing their best to take responsibility by looking first at ways that the Village might trim costs before asking villagers to pay more taxes. While Swansen and Council members at this point are only talking, not taking action, it’s critical for all villagers to think seriously about how these potential financial decisions could affect the kind of village that Yellow Springs is, and the kind of village that it wants to be. At last week’s meeting Swansen recommended changes to the Village utility service. The recommendations, made in consultation with the utilities staff, seek to prevent the Village from losing more money to delinquent utility payments. According to Swansen, the Village has lost about $225,000 in a “number of years.” Currently, the Village does not turn off a delinquent customer’s utilities in winter, but, if these changes are made, it will do so unless the customer is able to pay $175 on his bill. The proposed changes also hasten the time a delinquent customer’s utilities will be disconnected, from 60 days after the bill’s delinquency to 30 days. And the changes would require that customers pay a higher percentage of overdue bills--from 1/1`2 of the outstanding balance, plus current bill and penalty, to 1/6 of the outstanding balance, plus bill and penalty, about double what they pay now--in order to keep utilities working. The changes would also increase the utilities connection fee from $200 to $250. At last Monday’s meeting, Council member Judith Hempfling repeatedly expressed her concern about how these changes might affect low or even moderate-income villagers. It’s already hard to live in Yellow Springs as a single parent, a renter, or as a working class person with a low-paying job, she said. Does the Village really want to make things harder? Other Council members said they support the changes and felt assured that state and county grants are available to help utility customers pay their bills. The Village has been too lenient and compassionate to delinquent bill-payers in the past, according to Village Finance Director Sharon Potter, and it needs to do things differently now. At last week’s meeting, Swansen was doing his job by providing options and information. But Council members’ job is to represent all villagers, and they needed to raise more questions. For starters, they might have asked how many years it took to run up a loss of $225,000--was it two years, or 20? Actually, according to Potter this week, the bad debts go back about 15 years, which means the Village loses about $15,000 a year from delinquent utility bills. Council members might have raised other questions as well, such as who exactly is eligible for the state and county grants and whether it takes days or weeks or months to receive them. Do these grants really offer a viable and immediate solution to those who face having their heat shut off? People in Yellow Springs say they value diversity, and surely that includes economic diversity, the young families with children, the seniors on fixed income, and the artists and craftspeople. While it’s safe to assume that there will always be a few deadbeats, it’s also safe to assume that most people want to pay their bills. Is a savings of $15,000 a year really worth making life harder and more stressful for many valued members of our community? Is a less compassionate community the kind of community we want to be?
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