Sensible Spending -Local: February 2009 Archives

The Meredith News  February 12, 2009

To the Editor: It’s hard for me to believe that once again there is a small group of people that are coming through the back door to propose a plan to build new ball fields at the site of the Moultonboro Lions Club. This is only a back-door tactic to once again to try to build a recreation center after it was voted down at last year’s Town Meeting. This group of individuals must have not listened to the voters last year, who are made up of mostly retires on fixed incomes, that voted this whole issue down. Smarten up! Last year there was talk about a recession, when the recreation center/gym/pool/ ballfields were talked about and with the town once again becoming a donor town. Well, listen up! We are in a recession and in uncharted waters and we are going to become a donor town again. This group of people, looking to spend tax money at the expense of taxpayers at this time - get out of the bubble and quit watching Sesame Street! This economy is crumbling and thousands of people are out of work and losing jobs daily and citizens are hurting, both working and the ones retired. You may not at this point be affected from this crisis, but believe me, it could happen soon. No one will escape it. No one has a job for life today and I wonder if you were behind the eight ball, if you would want to see taxes go up? This is a year when budgets should and must be cut and no so-called pork

spending! I would also like to point out that there was a article a few days back that indicated that the youth population is declining in Moultonboro and there is going to be a study done to the cause of this. Question? Who are we building these new ball/soccer fields for? The retirees who make up the majority of the town? It can not be for the increase in our youth population. Message to the selectmen - please check with the Meredith selectmen to see if you can learn something from them, since their proposed budget is a decrease of 1.94 percent instead of an increase of 0.21 percent in ours!

Joe Quaresima

Moultonboro

The budget process is over. Both the town and the school district have presented  budgets for 2009-10.

The Town Budget that will be voted on at Town Meeting represents a decrease of approximately  $159,261 or -1.5%.

The School District did not quite fare as well with an increase in spending of $256,476 or +1.89%. 83% of the Districts increases were due to salaries and benefits.

The Library Budget shows and increase of $19,420 or +4.59%. The increase was reported by the ABC to be entirely due to salaries and benefits.

Click here for the Final ABC recommendations and budget numbers.