Adventures in Town Government
Saturday morning, a majority of electors at the Tiverton financial town meeting (FTM) for 2009 voted to cut the Budget Committee’s recommended school department budget by $627,247 — explicitly subtracting $174,054 from the local contribution and $453,193 from the expected general state aid. Owing to a Budget Committee resolution passed earlier in the meeting, any…
Reflection has not changed my opinion, stated while liveblogging, that Mike Burk, the moderator of today’s financial town meeting in Tiverton made every effort to be fair and, on the whole, succeeded. That said, he did make a few substantial errors, one of which brings into stark relief a problem of governance pervasive in Rhode…
Based on conversation here and here, it appears that I was wrong to state that “a new methodology will skew taxes toward waterfront properties.” Several people who are typically more specifically knowledgeable about town financial matters made statements that I apparently took too literally. That said, Tiverton Tax Assessor David Robert has strangely refused to…
Quirky Internet service has delayed my initial post, but I’ve been sitting in the Tiverton High School gymnasium for about a half-hour already. At about ten-of-nine (start time), I’m a little surprised that the turnout isn’t better. We’re probably somewhere in the 300-400 people range — sufficient for a quorum, but disappointing, given the turn-out-the-vote…
I had a very helpful conversation with a gentleman from the property revaluation vendor for Tiverton last night, and I learned quite a bit about the process. By the way, he was very patient and cordial, and I was very impressed with him, even if we may arrive a different conclusions. I agree with Justin…
The conventional wisdom is that Nick Gorham lost his seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives because of his support for regionalizing Exeter, Foster, Glocester, Scituate, West Greenwich and part of Coventry into a single town of Westconnaug, offending the delicate parochial sensibilities of his constitutents. I wonder what Mr. Gorham’s former constituents from…
Well, it’s some sort of milestone, I suppose, to be denounced by name in a mailing to the email list of Tiverton Youth Soccer (with which my children are not currently involved): Hi all, It is that time of the year again…. time for me to urge each of you to attend Tiverton’s Financial Town…
One could understand, perhaps, the city/town being its own biggest employer in a rural area or suburb with little by way of industry. But Warwick? Bob Cushman writes: According to Warwick’s 2007 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the City of Warwick was the No. 1 employer in Warwick, with 2,900 employees. Number two was Kent Hospital,…
Here’s an eye-popper: Cranston spends more than a fifth of its total budget on pensions (not including teachers). Nine municipalities spend over 10%. While Rhode Island’s political leaders wrestle with state pension reform, there’s another big pension headache out there — the soaring cost of municipal pensions. A new study by the business-backed Rhode Island…
Because it works differently than most other taxes with which we’re familiar, it surprised me when first I learned how property taxes are calculated, at least in Tiverton. In short, the rate is almost an irrelevant statistic. Confusion over that fact has led local Budget Committee and TCC member Tom Parker to pen the following…