GilfordGrok

From the Gilford Steamer (10/29/09) "Committee weighs where to spend and save":

Committee member Skip Murphy described this fund as “self-sustaining” and said that no town money has been placed in the fund since it was established.

I think my intent here was really to mean "and we have no visibility into the fund" - thus, it is "off-budget".  While it isn't a problem for the budget, we cannot see if the activity described by it is going to lead to a request for more staff.

I've said it lately and will continue to say it "I don't want to see programs expanding during this economic time."  We have no clue what the future holds - but I am thinking that we are going to see the Carter years come back with a vengence AND on steroids.  With the massive amount of debt being incurred by the Feds (thank you very much, President Bush for starting it and President Obama for accelerating it to warp speed!), the need to service that debt is going to rise dramatically.  Add to that fact that the Federal Bank is "minting" just HUGE numbers of dollars, I do expect inflation to hit sometime soon.

Add to the above, the fact that the State is broke too!  TOO much is being spent, and the Democrat budget writers (as the Democrats do hold all of the levers of power in this state right now) grossly overstated revenues, you can be sure that the revenue sharing will be as small as possible from the State.  Ditto from the County.

Sidebar: It seems that the County is about to drive it's portion of our property taxes up 7%!!!  The BudComm has voted to ask both our House Reps, Alida Milham and Bill Johnson, to come to our meeting to explain why!  Alida is the Chair of the County Convention - with respect to the County budget - and the buck stops with her.

When we know when she is coming, you all ought to come and ask (we do have "public input")!

Thus, this is NO time to be doing anything that is "project based", IMHO.  We fund the basics and make sure that what we have is taken care of - but no expansions.  The GIS project has been shelved, I tried to put off the new phone system (was out voted), et al. 

Yeah, I hear the old excuse - but that will cause a spike later on!!  Yes, I get that, but when people are losing their jobs, this is no time to be doing extras (and that's why I agree with Terry's thoughts on reviewing Merit pay, dues, books and the like).

That's why the decision that was made at the beginning of the year to offer dental benefits to part time employees is so troubling - it's not like the bad times weren't known then.

Now add in the $103,000 rise in health insurance that we just learned about, and I start getting antsy.  Sure, the Town Administrator has assured us that no change to the bottom line of the budget will happen - that's nice to hear....but I think it is time to change to another post.