Suggestion Box

The funny thing about complaints.  People actually start checking into them sooner or later.  When those complaints start involving me, you can bet the same are checked into.

For my part I have been digging into some of the issues raised relative to picking on a town department, my dislike, distaste, etc.  Seems that statistically, if that was my intent, I have been doing a very poor job at it.

I have a collection of town annual reports going back to 1993.  I keep them because there is a wealth of ready information in those books.  Want to know what was voted on at a town meeting, look through the reports.  It can be a bit cumbersome for research, but you still can't beat the old fashioned way of digging out the record and looking.

While I did some statistical comparisons as to department spending, which was interesting all by itself, I also wanted to dig into some other spending areas.  The results were very enlightening. 

Memory is at times a convenient thing.  We all tend to believe things based perceived memory, myself included.  Thus, to insure memory matches fact, I do look at the available records from time to time.  

People complaining about being the "poor relative" in the family should take a hard look at the hard facts.  They should really do a bit of digging themselves about what has actually been spent year to year.  

I would agree that we need to be looking toward ways of investing more than we do in our infrastructure.  Now that my memory has been a bit refreshed by the facts however, I will disagree with the argument we are presently spending less.  

Have there been years where the spending in one year was less than previous years on certain matters.  Yes there have.  Done out of necessity to attempt to maintain the operating budgets of departments. 

You would be very surprised by the way if you look at the growth rate of spending between the Big 4 from say the appropriation at the May, 2000 Town Meeting through the May, 2012 Town Meeting (it would be just as surprising by the way if you included the request for this year's Town Meeting).

I was.  I even went so far as to break down the operational costs by one entity into its various divisions because in reality parts of the same are funded from sources other than the general levy, well most of the operations anyway).

But certain matters for all departments are indeed funded outside of article 4 operation budgets.  Town Meeting votes separately on whether to give money to departments to do things other than keep the doors open so to speak.

I also took the extra step to break down spending on certain aspects in the entire budget by precincts, because people continue to cry "spread the wealth", and years in which different areas of the town received funding.  

To be perfectly honest, I am glad I did, because it seems my own memory was a bit faded, but not in such a way as to provide ammunition to the memories of those who continue to claim the "poor relative title".

I strongly suggest that everyone involved do the math, do the comparisons on their own. Look at the facts and not rely on simple memory.  You would, I think, be extremely surprised at just which departments have the highest rate of growth in spending from the May 2000 appropriation to the potential May 2013 appropriation.   

All the Big 4 have grown.  Some substantially more than others.  All components of the same have grown, again some substantially more than others.  

I oft note that perception is 95% of the battle.  It is.  You can win or lose an argument simply on perception.  More often than note however, perception will give way to hard facts.  This becomes especially true when people begin to realize that the perception you try to sell to them has not been based on hard facts which you should have known.

I don't need the facts to tell me we should be doing more.  We should be doing a whole lot more in a whole lot of areas.  

What we should be doing and what we are able to do depends on what we are willing to not do. 

What we have done, well that is a fact that is what it is.