With property values stagnant or in decline, with assessments approaching market values and soon to exceed, with population growth slowing and about to decline, with projections for student enrollment showing decline, lemings have been led to the slaughter. What was needed was an underride to return growth in our town, instead a minority of rich politicians bamboozled young parents.
First of all, the level of spending is not, nor ever should be expected to statistically correlate to the population. The level of spending should correlate with that population's preference for the quality of services it wishes to receive. It should be obvious that if there are 20 people in town and they prefer and are willing to spring for gold paved roads then the budget will need to be more than if there were 60 people in town who didn't want roads at all. Now, if your point is to imply mismanagement of funds in the town, then I can certainly sympathize with your concern. But one must be realistic. In local government, as a matter of fact in all levels of government, wasteful spending always occurs. Hence the reason for my belief in small governments with little spending. But, at the local level where the needs of the smaller populations can be more directly met and where there is more transparency at that level of government things change. The idea is that mismanagement can be avoided or monitored. Its hard for me to tell congress that I think they are misspending money, because what there are doing reflects an entire nation of 300 million people. Interests are far to conflicting at that level and they do not have adequate responses for my individual situation in my town. They are inefficient and ineffective at addressing the entire country's concerns at once. Plus how many times have you personally spoken with that crook Ted Kennedy or John Kerry. Once again, reasons I believe in limited federal government. But were talking about a local government, surely at some level there must be a functional governing body to reflect the needs of the citizenry. Now if the town is misspending money, it is a lot easier for me to drive the 5 minutes down the street and voice my concern, and it is always relatively apparent when they screw up. There is a smaller electorate's needs to be reflected whom the governing body is in constant contact with, making dealing with them much more efficient and effective. The needs of a community are most sufficiently met at the lower levels of government. As for the first commenter, an “underride” would do nothing and probably just make things worse off. In most cases at the national level, high taxes tend to hamper growth, or at the very least cause deadweight loses and a reduction in social gain. This is either good or bad depending on how much you value the action the government is taking with the money they spend. However, on the local level, while deadweight loses always occur with a tax, the benefits here certainly outweigh it. If the money actually goes towards the town's schools, then one can assume that the quality of the schools will increase. As the quality of schools increase, one attracts more homeowners and families to live in the town. It is indeed a fact that as the quality of schools increase, the equity on your house also increases. The value of property will increase when the town in which it is located is a better place to live, as more people want to live in a limited supply of property. Simple supply and demand. Up the quality of the property, without increasing the area, attracting even more people to want to live in Franklin, and they bid up property values. Good schools attract people and families and that leads to both population and economic growth as with more people in town, local businesses are given a boost. On a final note, in economics the use of tax money to go to education is based on a very simple principle. The actual amount of money going into the schools corresponds to how much people value the education of others. But why would I value the education of say commenter 2's daughter who is about to enter the school system. Well, I believe that with a proper and high quality education she will be able to in some form or another help either me as an individual, or society as whole, or a community, or a family, or one or two people by what she does. This is the payoff, I pay a tax, and then every U.S. citizen receives an education so that they one day can help me when I need customer service for my computer, when I need to buy a car, or a piece of equipment for my business. They can help me when they are a doctor, a lawyer, a vet, a salesperson, an investment banker, virtually anything. They need to be educated before they can even be in a position to perform their services, for which they will be compensated. Perhaps even more convincing, I value their education so we are not robbed of the next Nobel prize winner, the next diplomat, the next great leader of the country, the scientist who finds a cure AIDS and so on. Plus, imagine a poorly educated populous. It is education that allows society to function so effortlessly. I wont go into describing that, but think about what it would be like to live in a very undereducated town.
1995 School Budget $18 million 2007 School Budget $34 million School population increase of about 800 Town Budget up from $32 to $74 million
If spending does not correlate with population then what? Cost of health insurance - show it. Our town only shows per pupil spending. Our lunch program lost a cool $500000 - only to be bailed out by the taxpayers. Imagine no one could see the problem, not a principal, lunch program director, assistant superintendent- everyone missed it.
With property values stagnant or in decline, with assessments approaching market values and soon to exceed, with population growth slowing and about to decline, with projections for student enrollment showing decline, lemings have been led to the slaughter. What was needed was an underride to return growth in our town, instead a minority of rich politicians bamboozled young parents.
ReplyDeleteWhile I also have a daughter who will be entering the school system in a few years, I only have one reaction to Franklin's Budget management...
ReplyDelete1997 Budget - $46,095,182
2007 Budget - $93,937,726
1997 Population - 27,300
2007 Population - 31,500
Someone please ask these "managers" to account for this?
First of all, the level of spending is not, nor ever should be expected to statistically correlate to the population. The level of spending should correlate with that population's preference for the quality of services it wishes to receive. It should be obvious that if there are 20 people in town and they prefer and are willing to spring for gold paved roads then the budget will need to be more than if there were 60 people in town who didn't want roads at all. Now, if your point is to imply mismanagement of funds in the town, then I can certainly sympathize with your concern. But one must be realistic. In local government, as a matter of fact in all levels of government, wasteful spending always occurs. Hence the reason for my belief in small governments with little spending. But, at the local level where the needs of the smaller populations can be more directly met and where there is more transparency at that level of government things change. The idea is that mismanagement can be avoided or monitored. Its hard for me to tell congress that I think they are misspending money, because what there are doing reflects an entire nation of 300 million people. Interests are far to conflicting at that level and they do not have adequate responses for my individual situation in my town. They are inefficient and ineffective at addressing the entire country's concerns at once. Plus how many times have you personally spoken with that crook Ted Kennedy or John Kerry. Once again, reasons I believe in limited federal government. But were talking about a local government, surely at some level there must be a functional governing body to reflect the needs of the citizenry. Now if the town is misspending money, it is a lot easier for me to drive the 5 minutes down the street and voice my concern, and it is always relatively apparent when they screw up. There is a smaller electorate's needs to be reflected whom the governing body is in constant contact with, making dealing with them much more efficient and effective. The needs of a community are most sufficiently met at the lower levels of government. As for the first commenter, an “underride” would do nothing and probably just make things worse off. In most cases at the national level, high taxes tend to hamper growth, or at the very least cause deadweight loses and a reduction in social gain. This is either good or bad depending on how much you value the action the government is taking with the money they spend. However, on the local level, while deadweight loses always occur with a tax, the benefits here certainly outweigh it. If the money actually goes towards the town's schools, then one can assume that the quality of the schools will increase. As the quality of schools increase, one attracts more homeowners and families to live in the town. It is indeed a fact that as the quality of schools increase, the equity on your house also increases. The value of property will increase when the town in which it is located is a better place to live, as more people want to live in a limited supply of property. Simple supply and demand. Up the quality of the property, without increasing the area, attracting even more people to want to live in Franklin, and they bid up property values. Good schools attract people and families and that leads to both population and economic growth as with more people in town, local businesses are given a boost. On a final note, in economics the use of tax money to go to education is based on a very simple principle. The actual amount of money going into the schools corresponds to how much people value the education of others. But why would I value the education of say commenter 2's daughter who is about to enter the school system. Well, I believe that with a proper and high quality education she will be able to in some form or another help either me as an individual, or society as whole, or a community, or a family, or one or two people by what she does. This is the payoff, I pay a tax, and then every U.S. citizen receives an education so that they one day can help me when I need customer service for my computer, when I need to buy a car, or a piece of equipment for my business. They can help me when they are a doctor, a lawyer, a vet, a salesperson, an investment banker, virtually anything. They need to be educated before they can even be in a position to perform their services, for which they will be compensated. Perhaps even more convincing, I value their education so we are not robbed of the next Nobel prize winner, the next diplomat, the next great leader of the country, the scientist who finds a cure AIDS and so on. Plus, imagine a poorly educated populous. It is education that allows society to function so effortlessly. I wont go into describing that, but think about what it would be like to live in a very undereducated town.
ReplyDeleteIt was a yes in North Andover as well.
ReplyDelete1995 School Budget $18 million
2007 School Budget $34 million
School population increase of about 800
Town Budget up from $32 to $74 million
If spending does not correlate with population then what?
Cost of health insurance - show it. Our town only shows per pupil spending.
Our lunch program lost a cool $500000 - only to be bailed out by the taxpayers. Imagine no one could see the problem, not a principal, lunch program director, assistant superintendent- everyone missed it.
What is Franklin missing?