Council Sets Schedule for Reviewing Mayor’s $168.6 Million Budget

Review sessions by the Haverhil city council begin tonight for the new $168.6 million Haverhill city budget proposal in the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Councilors will meet at 7 p.m., tonight, in the council office, room 204, at Haverhill City Hall to hold a budget conference on spending plans for administrative departments. They include the mayor’s office, city clerk, Purchasing, Information Technology, Treasurer, Auditor, Employee Benefits, Human Resources as well as the budget plan for the council itself.

Other budget conference sessions by the council with various department heads will be held at the same time and place Monday, June 1; Wednesday, June 3; Tuesday, June 9; and set to conclude Wednesday, June 10.

On June 1, scheduled departmental budget reviews include Assessors, Law, Economic Development and Planning, Conservation, Inspectional Services, Library, Human Services and Veterans.

The June 3 conference session will cover the budgets for Stadium Commission, Public Works and Parks, as well as water/wastewater and Engineering.

Education spending and public building budgets will be taken up during the June 9 session. Public safety, including the police and fire departments and emergency management will round out the budget review schedule on June 10.

4 thoughts on “Council Sets Schedule for Reviewing Mayor’s $168.6 Million Budget

  1. The question is…what new taxes and fees are going to be instituted to pay for it all.

    We’ve already got…
    Automatic yearly 2.5% property tax increase.
    Parking tax
    Meals tax
    Hiring parking police to raise revenues by significantly increasing the amount of parking fines downtown
    Lying and defrauding the city council to open up the Fiorentini Weed Distribution Facility to sell the rights
    Selling every piece of available city property possible and inconveniencing homeowners in the process
    Lying in FY 2013 to set fraudulent budget and then end the year with a $3.5Million surplus for subjective spending

    All the new taxes and all the lying and all the hiding money and all the work to keep the city council from finding out what is really going on in the city budget and with out of control spending…..and yet it’s not enough!!!

    When is the city council going to stand up to this out of control liberal tax and spend hack mayor???

    • They don;t have the balls Jack…none of them do because they all want to stay elected to protect their health insurances and pension plans. The last two guys who stood up got bounced. Young was constantly questioning the budget and how things were done. Didn’t get much support because he was too extreme. The other fanned the flames (falsely) over that Food Waste Energy recycling plant figuring he could use that to get elected and it backfired on him. He was politically inept and now kisses the Mayors arse. He’s a humble bumble now. As I said above, there has been no real journalism to report the sham that has been going on for decades. It is sad how crazy it is in this city yet few are willing to stand up and do something about it.

  2. According to The Mayor, who has such thin skin, won’t take criticism on his FB pages and moderated them heavily, here is his presentation:

    http://www.ci.haverhill.ma.us/docs/Mayors_Budget_Message_FY16.pdf

    Of course no where is it mentioned that the pension system is a textbook Ponzi Scheme, which sucks up 23% of the budget, and we haven’t touched Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB) which will have to go towards the balance sheet due to GASB standards changing (according to the mayor $271 million). Of course this also doesn’t include deficit financing bonds, which in a normal world, the city would already be in receivership, but we live a banana republic of a state, so pulling forward production/consumption is now the new normal which blows up down the road. So what if future residents are screwed? The best of all though is raising taxes and costs during an era of income destruction in a relatively poor city. Brilliant. Maybe we can all end up on welfare and have The Fish Family buy up/build all the property in Haverhill for more 40B?

    • To his credit though, the Mayor has kept the Ponzi scheme from collapsing. Say what we will, but he inherited a serious debt issue. He told someone once that the Haverhill pension system is only 57% funded and that was horrible but not nearly as bad as some others. The money was lost on the Hale. People should have gone to jail. But all they got was praise at the time. You and I know how bad the financial situation really is. I don’t envy the next Mayor because that person will face the music and get the blame for sure. This guy gets away with it all because there has been no journalism to write the truth about what is going on for decades.