Realistic Budgets needed for Acton

The Acton Leadership Group (ALG) budget model of 1/27/2010 does not give the whole picture. It does not include the true budget numbers that informed voters need.

For background, the ALG budget model column labeled “actuals” is not really actuals. “Actuals” has a clear accounting definition that actual numbers are what really happened. The ALG budget plan “Actual” column contains some actuals, but it also uses other numbers, not identified in footnotes or anywhere else. Some ALG members seem to know which numbers are which, but some apparently do not. It is not possible for a voter to read the ALG budget plan and from it get a clear picture of what is happening.

Mr. Kabakoff , Chair of FinCom, recommended that the “actuals” column contain only actuals. Mr. Kabakoff is a professional accountant and understands good accounting practices. This author’s daughter is a certified CPA and has never heard of “actuals” being anything but actual values. But ALG, mostly not accountants, was unpersuaded by Mr. Kabakoff. Readers are invited to weigh in on this issue by asking the ALG why are they not using good accounting practices? ALG@acton-ma.gov.

In a comical display of “who understands the numbers,” one member of ALG was confused by ALG’s unusual accounting. He looked at the ALG model later in the meeting and asked about one glaringly misleading number in the “actuals” column. It turned out that unbenown to most of the people at the meeting, that one number had been changed to an “actual,” but since so many other numbers were not actuals, the numbers did not add up and did not make sense.

Mr. Kabakoff pointed out that this exchange proved his point, that “actuals” should be actuals, but the non-accountants were not persuaded, and so ALG’s unusual accounting practices continue to prevail. If ALG members are not in agreement as to the meaning of the numbers in the ALG budget model, how then is a voter supposed to understand the budget plan?

For months, there have been requests from members of the public that "actuals" be used in the ALG spreadsheet. This is important, since voters can not tell what to do next year unless they compare it to what we did this year. And "what we did this year" is not reflected in the ALG spreadsheet in an accurate way. A member of the audience, Mr. Kadlec , noted that “ Most of the numbers are not what they purport to be."

The reason given by several ALG members for this unusual accounting is that “this is the way we have always done it.” This unusual ALG accounting does not give voters a clear picture of budget plans.

A clear ALG budget model with actuals would expose another huge budget difficulty that the ALG is also not making clear to voters. The ALG budget model shows what they call a “0%” budget plan, which in reality is at least a 3% increase when comparing proposed budgets to actuals. Good accounting methods would require budgeting to show next year's proposed budget compared to the best spending forecast for this current year, and on this basis, the ALG "0%" budget increase might more realistically be as much as 3% or 5%. Voters can not know this from the ALG budget model, but it will be reported in a subsequent article.

ALG members know theur planned increases will be difficult to sell in this economic downturn , particularly if voters know the true numbers. But in the name of transparent government, it is time for ALG to use "actuals" that are true numbers. This needs to be corrected before Town Meeting.