'Tis the season.
Looks like Mansfield and Clinton voters passed their respective town budgets today. Colchester voters shot theirs down.
I remember writing about the budget process in those towns where budgets are approved by voters, not elected officials. I'm still not a huge fan of the idea. What do you think?
4 comments:
Waterbury, like many cities, passes a budget without referendum, by a vote of the Board of Aldermen. We will be voting on our budget on May 16th. We have had 4 public hearings on our budget with what could be described as no more than a handful of speakers.
True Blue, were you saying that city voters were 'low information' voters? I could not tell from your post.
Yeah, town government is SOOOOO last year. :)
Meriden's City Council voted its budget in May 1, unanimously. (It's a totally Democrat council!). Its Finance Committee, which recommends a budget to the full council, held several meetings from March through April on major portions of the budget: BOE, police and fire, public works, the big ticket items. Very few of the public attended. At the final public hearing, only 2 people spoke: one in favor of the education budget, the other, a self-styled libertarian, who is a regular fixture at Council meetings. Apparently either not much interest by Meriden, or as said above, people are happy with the status quo. Hard to tell.
As Andover has an election coming up next May, it's absolutely a good thing to keep track of.
I actually know a person or two involved in Andover politics.
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