Do You Hear Me Knocking, Knocking at Your Door

Before sailing off into the Maine vacation sunset, a quickie on this situation with the DOR.

If you've missed, the state Department of Revenue is thinking the city's budget is going to be out of whack this year. And by "out of whack," that means unbalanced, short on revenue, making plans the ole checkbook can't cover.

The depth of the problem remains to be seen as the city is still working on closing the books from the last fiscal year (not an unreasonable time frame, by the way). But it seems pretty evident there is going to be a gap to fill.

This was a problem around the time last year, the city was looking at a gap of about $600,000, if memory serves me correctly. This gap could be around $1 million, and more cuts are a possibility.

Considering the city's narrow margin of error -- or breaking even -- this isn't much of a surprise. Off by 1 percent, and you're looking at a problem. Of course, the way the city is going, it's a 1 percent problem, not a 1 percent benefit. Not an excuse, just reality.

Anyway, this means more like a continuation of the old problems, not a new one, if that makes sense. It will be interesting to see how much heat the mayor takes on this. Now that the electoral dynamic is out of his relationship with the councilors, will councilors beat the tar out of him like they have in the past? Will the criticism be toned down? I guess we'll found out next month when the council gets back to business.

While we're on the topic, it's been only a month-plus, but has there been any noticeable reduction in city services since the cuts were made last month? This is anecdotal, of course, but appears as if residents aren't seeing any real problems (Rachel, commence screed on the ambulance service... now). Let's see what happens next. More cuts seem possible, but from where?