03/09/2026
We just heard the Town Manager's budget presentation, where he recommended a tax increase of more than 8%.
To be clear: there is no way in hell we will vote for that.
But that means the next few weeks of the budget process are going to be brutal. We need to make cuts in the millions to get this budget down to reasonable levels. We have some major challenges that are barreling towards us, not least of which is that the cost of gassing up town vehicles is about to get way more expensive. (Never let it be said that national issues don't matter to local government.) When fuel costs skyrocket like this, everything becomes more expensive, and that's as true for our towns as for our families.
Our biggest challenge, though, is that the state isn't structured to prioritize communities like ours. We desperately need to fix the ECS formula to make sure that schools are funded more fairly. We also need the General Assembly to start looking at broader fixes that address the bigger inequities in our state, the biggest being that we're almost entirely reliant on local property taxes to fund local government. Our current system ensures that rich towns thrive while working class communities struggle. As long as that's the way the state approaches local government operations, we're always going to find ourselves behind the 8 ball this time each year. We need to spend some time talking with our legislators and candidates about how the state is structured in a broad sense.
All that being said, we need to hear from you. Most years, the silence from town residents around budget season is deafening. As we get deeper into the weeds on budgeting and looking for cuts, we need to hear from you about what programs and personnel make the most impact to you and your family. Comments like those are a thousand times more useful to us than cantankerous statements about belt-tightening and other cliches. So please come out to the public hearing on our budget, scheduled for March 19 at 7:00 pm, and tell us what you'd like to see us focus on for FY2027.
