I have been looking through the expenses and Town reports and have put together a worksheet to analyze the expenses of Vendors and Town Wages. The worksheet provides a reasonable picture of the last 2 1/2 years of expenses by vendor / employee. Since many vendors are employees and many employees are vendors I thought it would be a good exercise to combine these to gain a better insight and develop a complete expense picture.
I was surprised when I looked at the wages and saw with very few exceptions most people received an increase in the 8% area. The notable people with a decrease where Dept. Heads Samantha Cole and Ronal Patch, there were others.
The CEO salary also increased 2.3%, yet the budget for this department hasn’t passed resident approval in the past few years and was supposed to be revisited, which it wasn’t. Last approval was $37,000 in total to my knowledge.
It was also surprising to me to see the income of the Road Commissioner to be $253,000 for the period with Selectmen Chair Bob Frizzell coming in at $212,000, with many other coming right in just under this income area. Obviously this worksheet doesn’t tell the whole story, but it does provide some insight. It is important to understand the wages as listed are not fully burdened with taxes or benefits and retirement expenses. So the total compensation as listed is quite short of the actual cost and expense to the Town.
I also noticed in many cases an increase in Wages for people typically identified as “Sub Contractors”. The people / companies in this category saw a significant bump, which is surprising when you wouldn’t expect them to have wages at all. I made an attempt to classify the entries by department / category in many cases this is only a guess.
Here is a link to the worksheet
I have am providing this to the Budget Committee as well and we will certainly be looking it over in the coming meetings.. You can look it over and draw your own conclusions and perform your own analysis.
If you would like a copy of the MsExcel Worksheet to work with let me know via email and I will send you a copy…
HOLY COW MILKING !!!!is it no wonder our roads are in such poor condition when our elected officials are filling their pockets with all the money and doing nothing to improve the roads??how much more milk can the cow produce??the teets must dry up sometime?don’t they?
candidate for selectman?does this mean the next one elected should buy a gravel pit and equipment to make a little extra money on the side?or maybe it would be a good year to build that library we desperately need if they are a builder and need work??
just a thought if someones looking for a career move!
No wonder Frizzell and Davis are running again. Is Frizzell out of hock with his business yet? If he isn’t he soon will be. This is just god awful. Can’t we do something like Berwick did? I think they really raised enough ruckus until they got rid of who they wanted to get rid of. LOL . All I know is that I am sick and tired of paying for their pleasures.
I couldn’t do what they are doing and sleep at night. I just wouldn’t be able too. I am sure they are laughing all the way to the bank.
SHAME ON THEM. SHAME ON THE TOWN OFFICE FOR DOING WHAT THEY ARE DOING!!!!!
I just returned from the Budget Committee meeting in review of the school budget with the superintendent.
A town employee approached me over this article and was upset that I had stated and indicated there was a “wage increase” when there hadn’t been one in two years in their case.
The person claimed I didn’t have the story. They stated the increases were due to additional hours and additional duties and many other factors.
I explained the wage sheets showed an increase in compensation and that is the correlation I based my findings on… compensation.
So it is important to understand in some cases a non salary employee may have worked more hours, perhaps even at a smaller rate, but made more money.
One could also discern that some of those who had a compensation / wage decrease simply worked less hours and didn’t have a wage cut.
My goal in my analysis was to gain a better understanding on the expenses in general year over year. I think the sheet goes a long way to toward that goal. Finally, many of the employees who had an increase are salary positions.
I do not have the sheet with me, but I just wanted to clarify on my behalf what does appear to be a 255% pay increase. My stipend as a rescue member was one year, and then the next year, I received my $12.00 per hour to be a selectman, so it looks like the combined $7,000 or whatever it was is a huge increase, but I can assure you that I put in about 30 hours a week on the rescue and a lot for selectman, but only get paid the $12.00 per hour for hours I put in.
The vendor list can also be deceiving at times also. Under Samantha and I, it shows we were vendors, but those are re-imbursements for using out personal credit cards to purchase things. Like the computer was put on our card, so it looked like we made $1,000. All the postage, supplies, etc are put on our cards, and then we are re-imbursed. Its kinda deceiving, just wanted to point that out. Samantha has never that I can remember put in for any mileage as her stipend is her pay for everything in her eyes, so if she drives 500 miles a month for the rescue, she gets zero. (and she has a brand new 1 year old van with 42,000 miles now on it, she drives it everywhere).
I just wanted to clarify so people knew why the increase in mine!
You notice that Jason came on the website to explain his increase?
WHY DOESN”T FRIZZELL and PATCH AND DAVIS come on and explain theirs? I think we all know the answers to that one……………
I looked over the sheet and thought it was good info. It is good to see the compensation changes and the breakdown. Jason’s point that some of the employee expenses showing under vendor totals is good. I liked seeing the vendors like the school, waste company and Ray Davis and how things trended. I wish the Town would present more stuff like this for people.
I believe all this information is available in the annual reports if anybody bothers to read them that is. This is all reactive to past events that will continue until we actually do something. That opportunity is on election day. If anyone has the time they should consider joining the budget committee or running for selectman if they have the time. Maybe we need a Lebanon Tea Party!
btw- The Maine 2nd Annual Tax Day Tea Party is 4/15 in Augusta from 3-7 pm @Capitol Park. fmi- http://www.mainepatriots.com
I like your idea of a Lebanon Tea Party. My believe is that until you get ALL out that have been there since time began, nothing will change.
I hope we get a committee for a town charter passed on this coming up election day, but I am fearful that Frizzell is going to run again for selectman because if the “do nothing duo” get in there another year, who do you think they will assign to the charter committee?
Come on people get involved and start cleaning up our town…….
I am seriously thinking of running for the budget committee. It all depends upon my doctor on the 11th. I have some serious problems health wise. So will keep my fingers crossed…….
I like Idea Kurt… Great information..
Your right the Town Reports are always ancient info by the time you get them.
It’s like looking at a Newspaper from a prior decade. The news is no longer…well news instead it’s history. We need the scoops and the news, history is good to look back on, and we have gotten much better with it. We could do far better with the current affairs. Recording of meetings and video would be a good start as well as posting financial budget info to the Town Website.