GilfordGrok

Article 15. To see if the Town will vote to establish a Recreation Revolving Fund pursuant to RSA 35-B:2 II. The money received from fees and charges for recreation programs and donations shall be allowed to accumulate from year to year, and shall not be considered to be part of the Town’s general fund. The Town Treasurer shall have custody of all monies in the fund, and shall pay out the same pursuant to the policy developed by the Town (upon order of the Board of Selectmen). These funds may be expended only for recreation purposes as stated in RSA 35-B, and no expenditure shall be made in such a way as to require the expenditure of other town funds that have not been appropriated for that purpose.

Twenty one Warrant Articles will be presented to the voters this year on the Town side. One has to do with the Parks and Recreation department. By all accounts (including mine), Herb Greene, the new Director, did a very good job of presenting the needs of his department. He also held up well under intense scrutiny of the Budget Committee of his budget has when the topic of increasing programs and staff came up. Certainly what disturbed Budget committee members was a philosophical one and of serious debate: what is the proper role of local government? At what point is government stepping in because parents aren't?

Unlike some functions of the Town like road maintenance and safety services which are “needs”, Parks and Recreation is a “want”. To better illustrate the terminology, consider the following scenario – often in severe winter storms, state workers that are “non-essential” stay home. While Police, Fire, and DPW workers would be considered “essential”, Parks and Rec workers would not.

Please don't get the wrong impression – this department adds to the overall quality of life here in Gilford (otherwise it would not exist). However, the contention is that this department was exhibiting behavior that many in the government do – wanting to expand and wishing to increase their level of service. Which, of course, increases budgetary needs. While this is true also in the private sector, the stark arbitrator of profit hold this “scope creep” to a minimum. There is often no such direct governor in local government outside of the Budget Committee – as always, it is easier to say “yes” to new programs and staff than to say “no”, especially nascent ones for kids, right?

The philosophical debate can be framed as “should government continue to expand into areas that chould be run by private citizens?”. In this case, why should Parks and Recs be spending time (and money) aggregating kids for a ski program that parents could easily do on their own? Certainly families can arrange trips to see a Red Sox game, right? At what point should parents be banding together to run programs instead of being dependent on growing government to provide yet another service?

Because some Budget Committee members raised the question, a vociferous debate ensued with those that felt that government should be always be able to continue to provide more and more services. And got upset that those BudComm members just wouldn't understand that the quality of life always overrides the need to use other peoples' money to fund it. After all, when the Warrant was originally approved by the Selectmen, the Citizen quoted Dennis Doten, chair of the Board of Selectmen, said that,

“with the change, the budget committee will no longer have to look over each program”.

Wow!  Trying to lighten the load of the BudComm! Methinks the thinking might have been:

“Now, the BudComm can no longer delete a program.”

By placing this mechanism in place, the Selectmen are effectively removing a portion of Town expenses and income from the oversight of the Budget. After all, they can't say no if they can't see it!

Tangental Note:

As I found out, there is a LOT more time and effort needed to adequately and properly analyze the Town and School Board budgets than what I would have ever thought.  There is a lot of preparation, there are a lot of meetings, and yes, calls to make sure that schedules and information is correct.

For those that have publicly stated that the attempts of the BudComm to slow the rise of spending were "arbitrary" or that we were "ignorant" in doing so, you are quite mistaken.  Frankly, my observation of most of those that have done so is that I could count the number of times they came either not at all or seldom enough that I could use, as the old saying goes, use one hand and still have fingers left over.

The Warrant does speak of donations to the Parks and Rec department. I have no problems with a revolving fund into which citizens can put money in to for funding these governmental services, above and beyond their necessary taxes. Anyone at any time can make donations, and I would encourage people to do so.

Don't get me wrong - kids need activities.  I just have a problem when some people have a knee jerk reaction that all needs have to solved by government because "parents are too busy; it is a different time than when you were small".  I obviously have problems with that philosophy - being a "tail ender" of the Boomer generation, I realize the impact of what the "Me" Generation has had - and that narcissim / lack of responsibility that is now passed to the subsequent generation. 

Part of this is a circular reason - when the $30 million Town/School budget is divided up by the 7400 residents, it is a cost of $4,054 / person.  Not voting person, not taxpayer, but each person.  I often hear that both parents have to work to make ends meet, thus government has to step in.  How come I don't hear from these same people, "hey, the reason why both parents have to work is partly because taxes are so high!".  If they were so concerned with families overall quality of life, they'd be spending their time trying to aid families keep more of their money instead of spending it for them because "we know better than you that some of you need this service more".

Here is another way to frame the question:

did the Warrant Article go too far, or not far enough?

For an expenditure of almost a quarter of a million dollars, serving what the Mr. Greene admits is a small number of residents at a cost of about a couple of hundred dollars per person for targeted programs (the Gilford Beach operation excepted), I ask the question:

Should the Warrant have privatized the Parks and Recreation department altogether?

or

The funds received by the  Parks and Recreation department from fees and charges shall be put into that revolving fund and the overall governmental funding be decreased by the same amount.

Anyways, in the vast majority of cases dealing with kids (which P&R does), parents are the key, not government.  Instead of providing an easy "out", sometimes we should be prodding them a bit more and also making it easier for them to do so. 

After all, government workers will almost always never love kids more than their parents, right?