Fun times on the FinComm.

 Fun times,

   Town meeting approaches and we as a town are facing a dilemma. Recently our Select Board (who were well within their rights) hired a new town administrator with a substantial increase in pay over the previous administrator and mayors of several surrounding much larger towns. Se ethe articles in https://dartmouth.theweektoday.com/  for background information. The following are my thoughts and do not express the thoughts of the Finance Committee or its members in any way. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have resigned my position as a result of the situation and another that is brewing) 

 The Finance committee spent months over the winter and spring meeting with and reviewing the budgets of the different town depts. We asked questions of the the dept heads about capital needs and present budgets conditions and we felt as a group a 3% raise for employees was do-able given out town budget and financial constraints. we spent meetings discussing the effects of people getting 4% while their employees get 3. After the meetings ,discussions and arguing (good naturedly) we agreed on a preliminary budget  to submit to the Select Board. we received back a budget with an abnormal increase in one line item. Town Administrator. The budget has been increased to 225,000 over the 200,000 we had agreed on.

       Dartmouth is encumbered by a process called Proposition 2 1/2 . Google for more information. 

With the town manager getting a 25,000 raise or more (depending on who you talk to) how do you tell the other employees in town who do an excellent job that they might get 25 HUNDRED dollars if they are fortunate. 

Another fact that draws into question the contract is the fact the mayors of surrounding towns which have a much larger population have substantially LOWER salaries. New Bedford for example pays its mayor 167,000 (almost 60,000 dollars less.) and Fall River 118,000 and its Town Administrator 145,000. New Bedford's annual budget is roughly 6 times Dartmouth's budget . Shouldn't those figures be turned around?