Over on the Tiverton Citizens for Change blog, I’ve been following the battle over the tax cap in this year’s budget war. The town’s Budget Committee has now voted to reduce all requested budgets to an amount below the state cap on property tax increases (4.5%). The School Committee is actively declaring the end of education as we know it for children, insisting that a roughly 6% across-the-board reduction in employee compensation is simply too draconian to consider. The Town Council is striving to push the town over the cap.
This coming Monday, for instance, Town Solicitor Andy Teitz has once again slipped the controversial topic onto the tail end of the council’s agenda, under his comments and questions section. Do other Town Councils in Rhode Island operate this way? It seems like a sneaky maneuver to me.
As I note in today’s blog post it is no longer the case that town officials can play the negotiation game and expect residents to accept their budget requests. Residents of other Rhode Island cities and towns should know that it really doesn’t take much to show the powers who be that folks are paying attention.