Happy New Year

Now that the holidays are behind us, we can all start to turn our attention to Town Meeting. A lot has happened in the budget process already and there are some important meetings next week--the public hearings will be held on January 7th and 8th.

(Edited---the meetings on January 7th & 8th are the final budget meetings, not the public hearing. The public hearing will be held on January 14th. Sorry for any confusion!)

There's a lot to explain about the process (and honestly, I don't understand it all) so I thought I'd break it down a bit over the next week or two. 

Let me start with our elected bodies. We have 3 main elected bodies: the Town Council, the School Board and the Budget Committee. 

In a nutshell, the Town oversees all the town stuff--roads, police, fire, water, etc. And the School oversees the education of students in grades K-12. The Town Council doesn't tell the School Board what to do or vice versa (although many people would like to see that changed, but that's another post.) 

The third elected body is the Budget Committee. The Budget Committee's purpose is to "assist the voters in the prudent appropriation of public funds." According to the LGC's (Local Government Center) FAQ on their website, "while the budget committee has the duty to review current expenditures, it is primarily for the purpose of preparing future budgets, rather than to challenge or dispute what the governing body is doing. No one has legal authority to challenge the discretion of the governing body in making transfers among purposes of appropriation." Interesting. The Budget Committee feels like it has a bigger purpose and I'm not sure if that's in their heads or mine. At some point when I have the time, I'll look through the RSA's and try to make sense of of it. 

Until I find that extra time, I'll leave you with the one thing that I'm sure of: the voters make the final decision. Clearly, the vote in March is important. That's where the final decisions get made when we all fill out our ballots. But, a lot happens prior to that vote and there are meetings that everyone should attend. 

The bulk of what we vote on has to do with money. The voters will decide the budgets for the following year for both the town and the school. Maybe you don't think it matters to you. But this isn't just about water, roads and schools. We get the privilege of deciding what kind of town we want to live in through Town Meeting every year. 

And that should matter to everyone.