A point well-taken

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Town Councilor Tom Koenig put the annual budget dilemma into perspective when he said last week: “To try to trim further, I think, would start cutting into direct services to the extent that it would not be worth the 10 or 20 dollars in savings you might get at the end of the year, and we’d have a revolt on the other hand.” Right on both counts.

Trying to balance reasonable tax increases (or, indeed, trying to keep taxes from increasing, perhaps even cutting them) with providing needed services is a tough job, not only in Merrimack, but in every community. We believe – and we hope that you do, too – that Merrimack officials really try hard to achieve that balance. Generally, they succeed, and on the town side, at least, they manage to do it without – as the school board did a few years ago – scaring the heck out of everyone with threats of dire layoffs.

The proposed town budget is up, but as our Karen Lovett reported last week, that’s primarily because of increases in contracted wages, health insurance and inflation related to energy costs. Those are the same issues every business faces and the town is, after all, something of a business. It’s hard to see what the Town Council could have done to avoid an increase short of convincing workers to eschew their contracted increases.

But workers have monetary issues, too. Their health insurance costs have gone up as has the cost of fuel for their homes. And have you noticed that the price of gasoline is creeping up even before the normal creep-up date of late April or early May? What that means is anyone’s guess, but you can probably rest assured that it doesn’t bode well for prices at the pump as vacation season hits.

Of course, it’s possible that you have some ideas about where the Town Council could save some money and if you do, the time to express them is Feb. 11 when the public hearing on the budget will be held.

Keep in mind, though, that your town councilors are in the same boat as you: They have to pay the taxes, too, so it’s a fair conclusion that if they could cut more without whacking services, they’d do it.

Congratulations

Ian Hermann, a seventh-grader at Merrimack Middle School, will represent the community at the regional Spelling Bee at the Nashua Elks Lodge on March 7.

Ian had this to say after his victory: “I feel pretty proud of myself. I didn’t think I was going to win first place.”

That’s not surprising, given the spelling talent in the school: There was a school record four runoffs held to break ties before Ian won.

And he should be proud. We live in a time when a lot of the basic skills we once took for granted don’t seem to have the same importance, spelling being one of them. But kids like Ian give us reason to believe that, at MMS, at least, the basics are still important.