The Brattleboro Representative Town Meeting Human Services Review Committee will meet on Tuesday, December 2, 2014 at 5:00pm at 175 South Main Street.
Jan Anderson
Executive Secretary
Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office
(802) 251-8100
…
Human Services Review Committee
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Regular Meeting – 5:00pm
175 South Main Street, Brattleboro
Agenda
(1) Convene meeting
(2) Approve Minutes – November 25
(3) Public Participation
(4) Determine Human Services Funding Recommendations
(5) Adjourn
Fair Notice: Human Services Funding in Question
I think it would be fair to say that I have heard serious talk recently about doing away with all of the Town’s funding of human services. This is why it would be good if people talk about such things, and especially if they attend meetings like this one.
There is an argument to be made that the tri-partite foundation of our democracy — such as it is today — is the separation of the public, private, and charitable sectors. By this argument, why should people be taxed by the public sector in order for the public sector to make charitable contributions to 501-C.3 charitable non-profit organizations?
The arguments *for* the Town supporting charitable organizations go along the lines of ‘some of them are very small and don’t get enough funding from other sources’ or ‘the Town helps fill in for essential services to the poor during times when gift funding is thin’. There are good points to be made on this side too.
Anyway, Town funding for human services was cut last year, and may well be cut again this coming March during Representative Town Meeting. Cutting all such funding would be fairly radical, I think, but could possibly take place.
John Wilmerding
Town of Brattleboro Finance Committee
Speak up, is right
This year the Selectboard specifically asked for citizen input on the issue of Human Services funding, and whether it should be part of the tax bill.
And, this year, they asked the committee to stay within a $120,000 limit.
The original plan (2005) was to set aside 2% of the budget to give to human service organizations. The committee was formed to consolidate all the annual requests into one Town Meeting article.