Shrewsbury Aldermen Look at City's Deficit

The Shrewsbury Board of Aldermen looked at two scenarios for the future during their work session on Tuesday evening at . One with the Walmart Supercenter proposed for Kenrick Plaza, and one without.

The Aldermen heard budget reports from the city’s department heads. Daniel Oettle, Shrewbury’s finance director, summed up what stood our to her. She said fuel costs were up in all departments. Revenue, coming mostly from sales tax, is down four percent from last July.

Shrewsbury has been running on a budget deficit of $180,000, dipping into the reserve of a little over two million dollars. After hearing the reports, Mayor Felicity Buckley wanted to hear from each alderman what their opinion going forward. Should the city continue on the course of a deficit budget, or not?

The one big unknown, was if a Walmart Supercenter will be part of that future.

“If this doesn’t happen,” Alderman Mike Travaglini said, “then we have to look at this as a fairly permanent situation. So then we’d only have the option of running those deficits any more.

“If this doesn’t go,” he said. “I think most people won't like what they see, what Shrewsbury has to offer them in the long run, because we’re going to have to cut a lot of services.”

Dee Weicher agreed to the deficit budget for next year, but said they need a plan B down the line, “and we need to start thinking about that now rather than later, if this doesn’t work.”

Even in the best-case scenario, if the Walmart were to be approved tomorrow, it would still be four to five years before its doors would open.

Weicher noted that a portion of revenue from utility fees that has decreased since last year has been from telephone lines, and guessed that residents have cut their land lines in favor of only using cell phones. She said that in the 21st Century the city can’t depend on 20th Century revenues. Taxing internet sales was discussed.

Buckley said that 82 percent of the budget goes to city employees’ salaries and benefits, which have been frozen. She said most residents haven’t noticed a cut because it’s the city workers that have taken the brunt of the cuts. And she doesn’t like that.

“I don’t consider (salary freezes) a sustainable cut. If you don’t maintain that, you have to cut somewhere else, if you’re going to ask me to keep around the same budget,” Buckley said.

“Revenue is what's going to change this," Travaglini said, "not anything else. If we go through this budget process, and we find out it (the Walmart) won’t happen, then we'll have to reconvene, cause that’s when it’s going to get ugly,” he said.

“It’s easy to say it’s not a revenue issue, it’s a budget issue,” Travaglini said. But the people saying that aren’t really studying it, he said. “Without studying the budget maybe they don’t grasp the severity of the situation.”

Mayor Buckley said she is planning on writing a letter to the residents, laying out the city's financial situation.

“I think it is a disservice to the community not to make it very clear, that, here’s our deficit, we’re looking for that kind of money,” she said. “Anything that’s been discussed tonight has been discussed over the course of the year. It’s not anything new.
 
“We’ll continue to have a greater and greater disparity between our revenues and expenditures unless something changes,” she said.