I encourage any/all of you to email, phone or write letters to our town officials. Surely ALL of you have an opinion. Use your voice to support or reject support of funded issues in our community. We have such a low turnout for our budget referenda -- do not let a minority rule the direction of our town. Speak up now ... your silence to them equates to non-interest. All of you must be interested because the finalized budgets will impact on our tax obligation.
More than once, they have stated it is a revenue issue. I also see a problem with expenditures. Those need to be tweaked to KEEP THE BOTTOM LINE of each budget to last year's figure. They could do this by adjusting some line items down by: sharing more resources with neighboring communities (both equipment and personnel), eliminating redundant personnel, going green by using LESS paper/copies and maintaining electronic files with a backup system, evaluating items linked to "office" expenses like postage-toners etc., restricting use of office computers to only work related activities (software will monitor usage now and eliminate the introduction of viruses into the server), evaluating the use of town cars (and the resulting fuel) and "cross training employees" so busy seasons can be handled without the need of temporary hires. Adjustments must be made now to make up for the continuing increases in contractual agreements and fuel/utilities.
