Many residents are surprised to learn that BT has a massive $164M structural deficit. How did this happen and why weren’t better financial controls in place so that this did not occur? There are many responses to this, none of them are good. Elected officials used the pension and healthcare debt like a credit card, paying the minimum due and letting the balance balloon. They touted a good credit rating that did not reflect the debt. Residents believed that official were on top of the spending, but there were not. Data on the website and in third party sights is not easy to obtain or compare.
It has taken dedicated action from several residents to attend meetings, pour over hundreds of reports, FOIA information, make phone calls, ask questions and seek out comparative data to report that BT spending is high in many areas. BBT has identified six areas for review: 1) fiscal management, 2) labor and staffing, 3) operations, 4) outsourcing, 5) oversight and 6) procurement. It is our mission to insure that elected officials address improvements and cost cuts to these functions.