West Tisbury selectmen met with county manager Martina Thornton regarding a 5 percent administrative fee for regional service programs during Wednesday’s meeting.
Thornton said that the county budget is in a deficit created by the absence of alarm fees. After the Dukes County Sheriff ended a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the county, approximately $130,000 was lost in fee revenue.
“I have worked very hard to close that gap, but there is still a deficit,” she said.
County assessments have not been raised in eight out of the past 10 years. “Should the county have been allowed to raise assessment, the county tax, by 2.5 percent, we would have collected about $120,000 extra,” she said.
Thornton said in the past five years, the county has given approximately $750,000 back to the towns because of extra revenue: “Now is the time for the county to have the towns realize, we have provided the services and have not asked for more, but now we do need more.”
For Thornton, imposing the 5 percent administrative fee is a “reasonable option” when considering what it would take to increase the overall budget for the county. She reminded selectmen that it would require a two-thirds vote from all Island towns to increase the county budget. “That’s really hard to get,” she said.
Thornton also said that raising the budget would be a permanent move. “Meaning there’s no going back if we were to make that decision,” she said.
Over the years, Thornton said more and more regional services programs have been handled by the county.
“Over the five or six years I have been county manager, every year we get one more thing to do. It started with the healthcare access program, then First Stop, now Healthy Aging and CORE,” she said.
Although Thornton said she is happy to help nonprofits benefit the Island through benevolent services, many of those programs, she noted, are “heavily administrative for the county.”
“This is a great thing; we are able to help the towns figure out how to provide services Island-wide,” she said. “But with that comes management and administration. It doesn’t happen on its own.”
Thornton said 5 percent is a “very modest” amount, because many state and federal contracts call for an administrative fee of at least 5 percent.
She noted that Martha’s Vineyard Community Services has a 14 percent administrative fee attached to all their programs. “It will also address the issue at the county level of having a budget deficit,” she added.
The county provides an added value for towns and nonprofits, Thornton said: “There is an added value that the county provides to the towns, you don’t have to deal with contracts, you don’t have to look over bills. It has value for nonprofits as well, they don’t have to send six different bills and deal with six different town accountants to get paid.”
Selectman Skipper Manter said employees are already getting paid to to do that work through the county assessment, and to have a surtax on top of that is “not reasonable.”
“All these programs are 100 percent outside the county budget, and as far as giving money back, that was voted on by the recommendation of the advisory board, not by the county commissioners or the county manager,” he said.
Manter suggested that the towns have been overassessed, and have been stocking additional funds in a reserved funds account. That balance, according to Manter, has increased every year by hundreds of thousands of dollars. “That’s why we return so much money,” Manter said. “We have failed to follow state statute that says you are supposed to reduce your county assessment by the money in the surplus reserve fund.”
Manter requested that the town warrant be amended to omit the 5 percent administrative fee, but his request was turned down.
Cynthia Mitchell, chairwoman of the board of selectmen, said she doesn’t have a problem with the administrative fee.
“I would, however, have a problem with amending the article to pull the rug out from the other five towns,” she said. “It wouldn’t be respecting the process.”
Manter reminded Mitchell that the budget has not been completed yet, and can still be changed.
“Well then, I think we should let it be completed and think about it then,” Mitchell said.
In other business, the board approved the use of a county building in Tisbury by Island Health Care. Because Mitchell is the CEO of Island Health Care, she did not participate in the vote.
