"There is a difficult leap between talking about balancing the budget and actually doing it." ~ Kevin Brady
Over the past several months there has been a lot of discussion in the township board and planning commission meetings about Manchester Township's projected operating budget deficit for the 2012-13 fiscal year. By all accounts, our officials agree that the projected deficit lies somewhere around $150,000. It's a significant shortfall which has garnered the concern and attention of area residents. In the May township board meeting, current township supervisor Ron Mann invited residents to participate in the budget process and give input and feedback on where residents felt additional cuts could be made, and how residents could contribute to the process in a positive manner. Unfortunately, the budget information provided to the public was an incredibly generic and rudimentary budget, with no detailed line information, and thus, no possible way for residents with significant backgrounds in accounting and finance to provide free expert assistance to the township in managing our ongoing budget deficit. (You can view the provided document here. ) Sadly, when some residents requested more detailed information regarding the township's budget, Mann proclaimed that they "wouldn't understand it" (despite some profound professional experience in budgeting and accounting), and did not produce the requested information. To date, detailed budget information has not been provided to the public for the 2011-12 fiscal year, nor the current 2012-13 fiscal year which has been approved by the Manchester Township Board. Requests were made by e-mail and in writing.
The secrecy surrounding the budget, and the manner with which it's detailed information has been and is being withheld from public consumption, should raise questions with township residents. Surely, with thousands of residents in the township, there are likely a number of experts who could provide amazing assistance to the township on a volunteer basis. Despite what has been stated by officials in public meetings, this assistance, when offered, is not being taken advantage of (which reminds us of our township's web site issue, but that's a different post entirely).
Questions regarding the budget were raised at the recent forum for candidates that was held in Carr Park (see this post), and it seems that even the candidates were having a difficult time reconciling the state of the township's budget. A major point that many people seem to be confused on is how the township could have, or does have, a balanced budget on paper.
The answer: it doesn't.
Not really. The township board made a move to simply take funds from the township's savings to supplement the anticipated budget deficit to the tune of $140,000 or so. That, folks, is creative accounting, not balancing a budget - even though technically, it appears balanced. A truly balanced budget is comprised of expenditures that do not exceed income, and despite Ron Mann's invitations for the public to be involved in this, there's no way for township residents to ascertain if unnecessary expenditures have been eliminated without them being able to see the actual details of the budget.
The community group that manages this web site has been lobbying the township board and the planning commission to embrace a sense of transparent operations with township residents for months, only to be met with excuses and opposition at every step. The budget is but one of those issues, and none of our officials seem willing to share a detailed budget (or other simple operating documents and information) with our residents. WHY? With our available technology, it isn't hard to copy and paste documents to web sites, share a current budget on-line, post meeting minutes, live-stream meetings to the web, post audio clips, video footage, photos, or make even the most minute details available - all via the web. It's pretty simple, actually. So we're putting it out there - another public request that our township officials make a current and on-going township budget available for public review on the township's web site, along with our other simple web site improvement requests (which can all be found in the various meeting minutes, good luck getting a copy) , for public review and that long-requested transparency. Tell your elected officials that you want transparency within our government and want to see exactly what's in our township budget. You can reach Ron Mann, Township Supervisor, at (734) 428-7090.
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