Questions and Answers in reference to recent budget thread.
Does "the Town consumes a lot of fuel refer to overall consumption." Yes. This includes the total amount of oil and gas paid for from our budget. The word "total" refers to all of it. Cop cars, snowplows, building heat, chain saws, line stripers, street sweepers, travel expenses...
Is any wasted? Some, for sure. Idling wastes fuel. Redoing a mistake wastes fuel. Cleaning up messes and accidents made by citizens seems like a waste to me. Sweeping streets that the public has littered seems like a waste. Sidewalk plowing in front of houses occupied by healthy young men seems like a waste. What does all the waste amount to? I don't know. How can it be accurately determined?
What do I mean by budgeting in a long range planning context? It means putting our heads together to take the best measure we can about what situation the town might be in ten, twenty, fifty or a hundred years from now, creating a plan of action that responds to that and following thru with implementation. Altho I am speaking of very large and basic elements such as energy, housing, food supplies, maintaining environment and such one could also limit thinking to simple things like capital budgets, sinking funds, or simply, saving now for what we know we will need in five, ten and twenty years. The thinking currently is that with present interest rates low it is foolish to save money. I feel that is shortsighted. One consequence is that the Town seems to be continually lurching from one setback to the next.
There isn't a clear answer on what will happen if the Community Development Block Grant program is killed by the current Federal administration. At this point the decision to go ahead with many projects is based strictly on whether or not the are CDBG funds or grants to pay for it. Would we do them if we had to pay for them ourselves? That depends on the citizens. Federal taxes aren't apt to be reduced because of our crushing military and debt burdens. That means paying for projects on top of that. Whoever votes will be a part of that decision.