BudComm - increased healthcare costs?
I ended my last post this way:
Now add in the $103,000 rise in health insurance that we just learned about, and I start getting antsy. Sure, the Town Administrator has assured us that no change to the bottom line of the budget will happen - that's nice to hear....but I think it is time to change to another post.
The Dr. Obvious question to be asked is this:
if $103,000 can be found in the existing budget so that the overall budget does not go up, does that mean that there was fluff in there to begin with?
So, this means two more questions:
- Were even tougher decisions made, and will we find out about them?
- Are we (the BudComm) just not doing the job right? We think we're going to the basics - maybe we're not?
Margo Weeks, who is the School Board representative to the BudComm AND the Chair of said School Board, said that their increase is roughly $800,000 - and said that they TOO would not be altering their final budget number.
So, I can be comforted by one thing - constraining resources ALWAYS forces a rethinking of and a refocusing of priorities - departments, sub-departments, and programs / projects.
What will remain and what will go? I actually have no problem in programs being dropped - it always seems that once started, eternal life springs from within them - they never die....
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Update: this was written before last week's BudComm meeting - am posting this up now
