Philosophy matters because it gets translated into dollars at budget season
Philosophy matters. Especially when their budget is up 7.5%, the town budget was up 0.36%, and inflation is around 3%.
Philosophy gives one a frame of reference, a world view; a lens on how things are perceived and interpreted. Are people basically good, or bad? Is morality absolute, or relative? Does truth ever change or is it static? Do Rights come from God or from the State (which means, should the State even consider changing them if from God, or do Rights change on a whim of public opinion?)?
As we discussed the budget with the Library Trustees and Administration (here, here and here), there is a chasm on the ideas and philosophies about how a library should operate and the budget to support it. There is the question of do we need a traditional library (primacy on book lending) or slowly making a move to being a cultural center?
There was also another philosophical underpinning to the Library supporters: because the demand for their product (circulation of materials) was going up, they deserved to have all that the Selectmen gave them this year (forgetting for the moment that they excoriated the BudComm LAST year for not putting back into the budget what the Selectmen had already taken out before the budget came to us (so we were still the bad guys then too).
It certainly came out that if they did not receive all of what they wanted in their budget, they would consider it to be a cut. Any deletion of a line item or monies within that line item was a cut - even if the final amount was larger than last year's budget.
Only in government, can more money than last year still be called a cut!
My own opinion is that we are a small town library - what might be "needs" in the city are probably "wants" at this level. As a budget committee member, when evaluating the budget, I tend to ask that question a lot: "need" or "want"? And yes, my opinion may be different than others.
My philosophy in going into this budget process, given the economic times that we seem to be heading into,
(Sidenote: frankly, I'm not convinced that the bailout of anything other than the financial institutions is a good thing, and I'm not even sure that the financial wizards doling out the money know what they are doing.....add in the politicians and we have the recipe for a huge disaster with the flushing of hundreds (thousands???) of billions of dollars down the drain for nothing to show for it).
and I don't believe for a moment that there will a lot of money around for many people at all. Thus, a 7.46% rise over last year stood out like a sore thumb when all other departments were rather austere.
Yes, circulation demand has risen. If the Library was a private entity, as Bob Kammeraad tried to use as an analogy, it would make sense to add people and "stuff" to grow - as growth should mean either more market share or profit. Problem is, that is done with private money - the Library is not - it is funded with tax money. Thus, I disagree with the philosophy that an increased demand should automatically mean higher funding with other peoples' money.
Dick Hickok has it right - there should be controlled growth when dealing with government. Yes, demand can grow for services, but there is a limited amount of funding to go around. Even if Richard Young believes that all is free for usage, TANSTAAFL and we are tasked to be prudent with the taxpayer's purse. One could say that the DPW could be funded with much higher funding - why NOT pave all the streets in Gilford every year? After all, we all use the roads all the time?
But that would be silly, it is a silly argument, and we don't - it is not a prudent use of the taxpayer's purse.
I also have the philosophy that priorities matter. Everybody wants their slice of the pie (and because money is a scarce resource in government [or should be treated as such, but that is for a different post]), we have to prioritize who gets what at a given level of government. My philosophy, plain and simple, is that public safety (police, fire) and the roads should be the highest priorities in town. These functions are difficult for individuals to do on their own; they are best managed by individuals but carried out by local government. Next comes the Town Clerk (need money for operations and taking care of paperwork) and Education (as until the phrase "Every Child Deserves a Publicly Funded Education" becomes a reality). And then downward from there. Why?
To me, government is best limited and utilized for those functions that cannot be done better by private industry or by individuals themselves. I also believe that as government does more and more for people, they begin to depend on that function, and then demand that function, thus driving up costs (TANSTAAFL) as it is easy to demand something for which one does not pay the full cost.
Hmmm, going long here. Last point, and most important to me - too often we see the rise in the cost of government outstrip that of the average family income. Why should government, from a philosophical standpoint,k be allowed to outgrow those families that fund it? In my mind, we have turned the tables from what the Founding Fathers created - our founding documents have the philosophy to limit government for exactly the right reasons. If left unchecked, government will absorb, like the Borg of Star Trek (or Communist societies), all.
Disagree with me? Look at the european socialist democracies - there, government supplies all and does all - just not all that well if you REALLY do a drill down. But in return for that 'security", taxes are high - sky high in many cases. And that has resulted in a condition where many of our "poor" would be considered to be "middle class" there - and our middle class would be considered wealthy.
My overriding philosophy? Government should not rise beyond that of the people that it governs. Sadly, in many locals, that has not been followed - with horrible results.
