Mayors Budget Message

Mayor Picard's "Mayor's Message" that he distributed with his proposed budget puts forth some interesting points that haven't necessarily been made clear to the public:

• He admittedly puts forth a very conservative estimate of revenues from state and federal grant monies.
• He lowered tax collection expectations from 96% to 95.5% which conflicts with the statements being made about the new tax collection software problems in a news article today. Incidentally, there is a grant that can be had for Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal systems development, hardware, and training ... that might be something worth the town's time to look into.
• West Haven self-insurances health insurance, which is why there is a 22% increase in health insurance budgeted expenditures for education alone. I'm not convinced.
• There was an expected 4.3% increase in expenditures... WHY????
  
• Debt serviced is actually increasing by 10.5%... I thought he was paying down the debt by $19 million this year?

He is predicting that there will be a $9.5 million deficit from last year's budget -- but where's the proof? Where is the documentation of what was over budget?

The conservative estimate of revenues is concerning as well -- is he trying to make it look worse this year, so that next year during his re-election campaign, he can make it look better?