At the Council Candidate Forum on June 30, Allen Skillicorn continued to display his appalling lack of knowledge about the Town’s finances, given he wants to make financial decisions for the Town’s residents.

Initially, Mr. Skillicorn stated the Town has a backlog of $60-70 million for roads. However, in his closing statement, Mr. Skillicorn said all we needed to find was $1-2 million/year to fix the road backlog. When the pavement management study was presented to the Council, the recommendation was an additional $4 million/year be spent on roads, in addition to the $2 million/year the Town had already been allocating to roads at that time. When the stimulus funds run out, we’re going to need more than $1-2 million more per year for roads.

Mr. Skillicorn also stated the Town’s fiscal year 2023 budget increased by 10%. The increase was 9.4%, but using an incorrect double-digit number sounds a lot worse when one is seeking votes. What Mr. Skillicorn failed to say is the 9.4% increase in budgeted expenditures matches the 9.4% estimated increase in budgeted revenues. To have a balanced budget, which the Town is required to have, budgeted expenditures must match budgeted revenue. Budgeted expenditures are just that – budgeted – not already committed to be spent.

The budgeted expenditures include $4.4 million in contingency, in order to balance the budget. Removing the contingency, the budget increased by 3.6%, not 10%.

The final falsehood from Mr. Skillicorn was his statement that it was a mistake for the Town to increase the budget by 10%; we should have held something back and we need to have a rainy-day fund. The Town already has a rainy day/stabilization fund, and the estimated balance of that fund on June 30, 2022, is $3.9 million, an increase of 18.7% over the actual balance on June 30, 2021.