Editorial
Not enough

Anyone hoping for a miracle to come in the form of state aid numbers was sorely mistaken when the first version of the budget was released Wednesday.

Gov. Deval Patrick's budget proposals for local and school aid are not going to help any the local communities to the degree they say they need it.

None of the aid numbers for the four towns in the Community Journal's coverage area was increased more than $25,000 from last year. This means the towns will have to struggle to control budget growth, which is hard when fuel and electricity costs are increasing faster than new growth or state help. The other choice is the voters in these towns may face Proposition 2 1/2 overrides.

The governor proposed state aid at $870,706 for Ashburnham, which is a $15,029 increase from last year.

Westminster's aid from the state rose about $15,000 and Ashby's increased $6,638 over last year.

Townsend's local aid went up by $26,000.

The budget will not be adopted in this final form, and will be revised by both the House and Senate. But, this is the first time in many years that a Democratic governor is proposing a budget to a Democrat-controlled legislature. So it is unclear how close these predictions will be to the actual amounts the towns will receive from the state in FY08.

Our local representatives are going to need to work overtime if residents do not want to see staffing cuts and services reduced.

Watching these numbers it is hard to tell if it is better to fund local government through higher property taxes and control it on a local level, or to ask the state to pick up more of the tab and pay these bills through sales and income taxes.

It would be clear that paying and controlling on a local level would be preferable, if there were not a high number of state mandates and regulations about how the money needed to be spent.