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5:58	Elizabeth Cooper - Greetings, everyone. I'm here live at Perry Jr. High School for the first of two public hearings on the proposed New Hartfird budget for 2010.

5:58	Elizabeth Cooper - The budget includes a possible 54 percent tax increase.

6:00	Elizabeth Cooper - The room, which has an occupance level of 140 people, is full. Some people are standing at the back.

6:00	Elizabeth Cooper - Heather Mowat, the town's budget director is now giving a presentation on town finances.

6:02

Elizabeth Cooper - She is talking about how the town got into the mess it's in.

There had been 8 years without a town comptroller, she said.

By the end of 2008, they found that they had a million-dollar fund balance after discovering funds in the wrong accounts. Unaudited figures from the end of 2008 had shown just $250,000 in their main rainy day fund.

6:03	Elizabeth Cooper - Mowat also said that sales tax revenue had been overestimated by about half a million dollars each year for the past 3 years, she said.

6:04	Elizabeth Cooper - She is now explaining that the town then began using its rainy day fund to make up the balance of its budget.

6:04	[Comment From George] The question of what specifically happened to the $1.8 million in the general account has has never been completely answered. Specifically, where did the money go?

6:06

Elizabeth Cooper - George, Ms. Mowat is now trying to answer those questions. She says there was no theft or wrongdoing. Rather, the town was basically living beyond its means. They overestimated how much sales tax revenue they were going to get, and ended up digging into their savings to make up the difference. Of course it's more complicated than that, but those are the basics.

6:07	Elizabeth Cooper - Mowat is also pointing to other rising costs - like the fact that the cost of Deisel fuel costs, utilities and health insurance for employees are also goign up in cost. Apparenlty those things were not adequately dealing with that when they planned their annual budgets

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