Committee member finds Rockport spending above peers; committee discusses regionalization and contracting

Committee member Steve Bowen presented preliminary comparative data he collected from similar coastal towns and said he is still refining the spreadsheet. "First of all, I'm not a CPA. I'm not an accountant," he prefaced, then walked through high-level comparisons showing Rockport's municipal budget and four major departments were higher than peers.

Bowen summarized that the four major categories (administration, police, fire, public works) in Rockport represented roughly $6.3 million in his comparison while Booth Bay Harbor and another peer had lower totals. He said part of the recent multi-million-dollar increase in Rockport's budget was explained by additions over the last four years, including EMS (about $860,000), a buildings-and-grounds budget (about $487,742) and a one-time public-works carryover of roughly $1.132 million.

Members pressed Bowen and staff on accounting conventions and urged apples-to-apples comparisons. Several suggested that differences could reflect choices about contract labor versus in-house staffing, the number of road miles the town maintains (Rockport was described as covering roughly 74 miles of roads), and union versus non-union staffing models. One member suggested exploring regionalization (shared services with neighboring towns) as a possible path to reduce fixed-cost inefficiencies.

Steve said he would consolidate his figures into a spreadsheet for committee review and that he'd verify line items with the finance staff in peer towns so the committee could assess options such as contracting, shared services, or targeted reductions.