Town of Braintree

Asses

I remember the discussion of the original ballot question by the BOS and knew full well that the trash fee was coming. I think that they tried to do the right thing by keeping positions funded in the school department.

I also believe that if the debt exclusion passes, the trash fee will go away. Maybe you can argue about a forced override but what they are really doing is forcing us to take care of the roads and buildings that have been neglected for too long.

I don't fault the BOS for this effort and will support it when I vote in April. The work needs to be done and this is probably the only way to get it done.

I am sure the asses, or donkeys, on the Sisk committee will say that it can be done out of our current taxes but I dare them to prove it. They're just clones of McAuliffe - I need a comprehensive plan - but have no answers. Why didn't he get rid of this trash fee like he promised?

By Kong

Override

This is one voter who will vote against
the override. How to get revenue?
Tax the politicians who lie, the
politicians who say raise taxes every
other senence.

If we taxed every politician who
lied in this town we'd have enough
money to run Braintree for nest 50,000
years and have tons let over.



By MBC

Nay sayer

I'll give you a quick explanation, at least as I understand it, on the way the funding works. I'm by no means an expert but I think I understand it.

Each household paid $150 this year for trash collection unless they opted out. This payment from all of the homes totals $1.5 million which is used to pay Waste management.

We pay money from the existing tax revenues to service debt that was used to build the library, and other things from years past. I think this amount is $1.8 million dollars a years.

We put aside $500 thousand dollars for capital improvements last year and are trying to put 1.5 million aside this year. Although this is a good start, that amount of money doesn't go far enough to address the needs. For example, we need 3 million dollars to do Middle/Liberty road reconstruction. That means that the capital money (1.5 million) would need to be set aside for the next two years and would be dedicated to that project alone. We would have to wait three years or so to begin the work.

By excluding the existing debt and bonding new capital improvements, the $1.8 million that is being used to pay the debt off today is now free for another purpose. This means that the $1.8 million dollars will be used to pay for trash collection.

Also, by passing the debt exclusion, it allows the town to borrow money at the rate that the work can be performed. This allows the projects to receive funding when it is needed, but only for the projects included on the ballot question.

The debt exclusion will be shared over the entire tax paying properties, unlike the trash fee which excludes commercial properties. This means that our costs of servicing the debt will be lower because we have more people paying into it. I think this is more fair to the residents because if the commercial sector uses one thing more than others in this town, it is our roads.

The money for the debt exclusion can only be used for the purposes described on the ballot and the State monitors this activity very closely. This money cannot be used for raises or more employees.



By I get it

You sound like an informed voter

I hope that you are going to vote for my guy Darren McAuliffe. He says no to the trash fee.

By Mitzie