Hopefully members of our BOS, Budget Committee and School Board read and can understand the burden they put on our shoulders every time they raise salaries, add spending and ignore the signs that things will only get much worse for everyone if they continue to ask for more and more money instead of making some serious cuts to our town budget.
To close more than $400 billion in budget shortfalls, states have resorted largely to spending cuts, tax increases, and borrowing over the past four years.
But as governors and state legislatures prepare to write their budgets for fiscal 2012, they are “bracing themselves for what is likely to be the hardest year yet in what already has been the most difficult budget period in modern history,” according to Stateline, the news service of the Pew Center on the States.
State revenues have been up recently, but they dropped so deeply in 2008 and 2009 that it could take years for states to return to pre-recession levels. Also, the federal stimulus program, which helped states narrow budget gaps, is expiring just as healthcare costs are rising.
The dire prospects for 2012 are compelling state leaders to contemplate moves that “were once considered unthinkable,” Stateline reported.
• Maryland faces a budget shortfall of as much as $1.6 billion and may cut education spending and lay off government workers for the first time.
• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to take the politically unpopular step of scaling back his state’s Medicaid program.
• South Carolina will stop paying for hospice care for the poor.
• California Gov. Jerry Brown is arguing for the broad-based tax increases that voters overwhelmingly rejected two years ago.
• Georgia may begin applying the sales tax to groceries, despite legislation passed 15 years ago repealing the grocery tax.
• In Oregon, officials are considering cuts to pension benefits for current and future public employees.
Overall state tax revenue has grown over three consecutive quarters and economists expect economic growth in 2011.
But Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, said the growth masks the reality that states are dealing with.
“You might have some ridiculously high-sounding revenue growth but that’s because the base is so low,” Pattison told Stateline.
“I’ve been telling a lot of people, ‘Compare the budget totals to pre-recession levels, because that’s a better measure. Don’t assume happy days are here again.’”
They did not mention the trouble New Hampshire is in, we all know without being told; without a state tax or income tax, funding everything falls on the shoulders of property owners. Just where do our legislators think the unemployed, elderly and disabled are going to keep coming up with the money to bail their asses out ?
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Even Illinois is considering filing Bankruptcy!
The people most responsible for the increased property taxes are the voters that bitch and then don't vote. We are at a disadvantage in Winchester thanks to being an SB2 town. If you don't go to the deiberatiave sessions, then don't expect someone else to do it for you. With 2800 voters, one would think that more than 75 or 100 people would show up.You get what you deserve.
Add to that fact that only about 400 then show to vote on the mutilated petitioned warrant articles.
A lot of people would be amazed at how a petitioned warrant article that they signed has the complete opposite meaning once they are through with it at deliberative.
Or the people that sign the petitions and don't even know what they are signing.
I noticed that the book group at the library is readng "Doc" about Dennis Littky, the principal that made Winchester famous back in the 70's. I picked up a copy and read the chapter that described Winchester back then...... "over the years Winchester has become the major repository of the county's welfare load", "People expect things to go wrong. When they do, folks nod their heads" It's Winchester after all".
It goes on to say " In Concord, the state capital, Winchester has a reputation for rabble rousing, a community inclined to put itself above the law or get around it."
Sound familiar 30 years later???
Of course some of the names in the book are familiar and it does say a lot about how people love their town and are there to help one another in times of trouble. And that is true too. So I guess in short, over 30 years later Same ----- different day?
The observations of the book "Doc" were also written by a reporter that had worked for the Keene Sentinel. Newspapers are in the business of selling newspapers. Winchester has always seemed to garnish the front page headlines.The people in Winchester aren't much different than anyone else in the county. Read the court news. As far as the welfare load goes, most of it came about when Winchester bought into the "free" money from communtiy development grants for low income housing in the 1980's. Sound familiar? We can cure the problem by getting rid of zoning that allows cluster housing. By 1990 Winchester's disproportionate low income housing had reached 22% of available housing units. Take a look at Chesterfield's tax rate and look at their zoning plan. They stood firm on the type of development they wanted, and now the taxpayers are benefiting from it. The town hall needs to beware of the temptations of government officials bearing gifts. Our current zoning document was formed in the community development days to pave the way for more grants and development. We need to scrap half of it and start over before it drowns us.
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