Budget Presentation:
Citizens' demand for understandable financial information coupled with computer technology has greatly improved budget communications
(from Maine Townsman, January 1996)
By Jo Josephson, Staff Writer

This Maine Municipal Association publication is presented for "Classroom Use Only."  Its intended use is to stimulate and aid in discussion and role playing within a classroom setting.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In the face of mounting taxpayer unrest, in the name of citizen education, many municipalities in Maine are taking great pains to present their budgets in a "reader-friendly" fashion to ensure their taxpayers know exactly what they are getting for their money.

It used to be that it was enough to tell your taxpayers that about two-thirds of their tax dollars went to education and the rest went to running local and county government. It used to be that you could say that most of the money spent by local government was on roads, with public safety or solid waste a close second.

It used to be you could talk in generalities.

But no more. In these tight times, in these potentially taxpayer revolt times, municipalities throughout the state are recognizing the importance of explaining how they are spending their taxpayers' monies in ways that make sense to them, the taxpayers.

As such, municipalities are putting a lot of effort into making their explanations clear and easy to understand. Which is to say, they are making their budget documents and annual reports more "reader friendly".

Which is to say municipalities are making inherently complicated and dry information more interesting and therefore more accessible to the average taxpayer, not to mention the average reporter on your beat. Some are even developing newsletters to make sure the budget information reaches taxpayers before town meeting time.

In doing so, municipalities are turning more and more to the use of charts and graphs. For as the saying goes in this "USA Today" journalistic era: "A picture is worth a thousand words." And as they turn to graphics, municipalities are transforming the traditional table and pie chart into powerful citizen educational tools.

What follows are examples of but a few of some of the creative attempts at presenting the budget that have been produced by a handful of cities and towns in the southern part of the state, namely Waterboro, Falmouth, Scarborough, Windham and Cape Elizabeth. Most of the graphs and charts are exact copies taken from the town reports, budget documents and newsletters. A few have been modified to make for easier reading in the TOWNSMAN.

THE OVERVIEW APPROACH

Perhaps the first (and sometimes only) step taken by a municipality toward presenting a graphic representation of the budget is when it presents an overview of where the taxes are going. The traditional approach is to develop a pie chart to indicate the three major areas of spending: town, school and county. While the pie chart is perfectly acceptable, some municipalities, like Waterboro, have traded in the pie chart for a dollar bill graphic that comes with many software desktop publishing programs.

And while many municipalities also use the pie chart to show what percentage of the municipal budget is spent on police, roads, etc., a few municipalities, like Falmouth, do that and then some, producing pie charts that cross departmental lines. As such, they answer the taxpayer question of "Just how much are we spending in this town on personnel?" or "What's the total amount we spent on equipment this year?"

THE HOW DOES IT AFFECT ME APPROACH

When it comes to getting to the heart of the matter, when it comes to answering the question, "Just how much am I, Dick Blodgett, spending on these services?" Scarborough has come up with a unique series of charts.

Not only has it created a chart explaining how much the average taxpayer pays for services on an annual basis, the chart also notes how much those services are costing the average taxpayer on a monthly and a weekly basis!

As such, in Scarborough, according to last year's annual report, it cost the average residence about $13 a week, or $57 a month, or $685 a year to operate municipal government. It should be noted that Scarborough breaks out education, debt and community services (combined school/municipal programs) from the municipal budget in this chart.

Scarborough also applies this timely approach to certain municipal operations. As such, a second chart notes that it cost the average taxpayer in Scarborough about $1.70 a week, or $7.40 a month or $88.90 a year for the services rendered by the town's public works department.

And if you wonder why Scarborough officials have taken the trouble to break down the costs in such a manner, it is for the purpose of comparing municipal costs with the cost of some common non-municipal services, such as what consumers pay for cable TV or electricity or telephone on a weekly basis.

As such, according to last year's annual report, taxpayers in Scarbrough paid about the same weekly to Central Maine Power for their electricity as they do to run local government!

While Scarborough has opted for a series of charts to explain the impact of the budget on the "average taxpayer", Windham uses a similar and perhaps simpler approach to breaking down the costs for the "average taxpayer" in its newsletter, which it aptly calls "Keeping Windham Connected". The headline on page 7 of a recent issue reads:

In Windham, the 1995 Median Home Value is approximately $117,500. The property tax bill on this "average" Windham home would be approximately $1,860 for the current fiscal year. This figure is based on the town's current tax rate of $19.50 per thousand of assessed value and our assessment-to-market value ratio of 80 %. If public services provided at the local and county level were billed on a monthly basis, how would such bills compare to other services such as electricity, water, telephone, or even cable television?

Among the many graphs and charts in Falmouth's Budget Document, a hefty 300-page plus document that contains an introductory "Citizen's Guide to the Budget Document" are a number of charts indicating the cost per capita---the cost of selected municipal programs of general government to each man, woman and child in town.

As such, Falmouth's Budget Document notes that the cost per capita for running the Town Clerk's Office is $12.43, with a total annual cost of $106,950 for FY 96, which was an increase of 1.2 percent over the previous fiscal year.

WHAT A SINGLE TAX DOLLAR BUYS IN SERVICES APPROACH

If you think looking at spending on a per capita basis is getting to the bottom line, think again. In Windham they have developed a chart that explains what a single dollar buys in terms of municipal services. You can't get any simpler than that.

THE COMPARISON APPROACH

No one likes to note increases in the budget. But if you can show that the municipal budget is increasing less than other budgets, like the school budget or the county budget, then explaining it graphically could be a powerful political tool.

The following bar graph appeared in the "Falmouth Focus" in the summer of 1994. The newsletter is published once a year, as a complement to the town report. It depicts increases in the town budget and the school budget and the impact each of the increases is having on the overall tax rate.

In Cape Elizabeth they go a step further and compare the budget impact on the tax rate not only for the town and school budget, they also include the impact of community service (combined school/municipal programs) and county spending on the tax rate. And they don't just compare this year with last year; they look back over 10 years.

*Revaluation

And last but not least, an increasingly common approach is to show how your town's tax rate compares with the tax rate in other towns. Falmouth not only compares the rate with other coastal towns, it also compares the actual tax burden on a so-called medium valued home in each town.

*Tax for Town (non-educational) services.

SOME THOUGHTS ON GRAPHICS

Whether it be in the budget document or the annual report or the quarterly municipal newsletter, the insertion of graphs and charts can be a valuable educational tool. But that is not to say a graph is a graph is a graph or a chart is a chart is a chart. There are some basic rules regarding the use of charts and graphs that you should be aware of.

The following ideas were extracted from "Writing for Results In Business, Government, the Sciences and the Professions," by David W. Ewing, John Wiley and Sons.