Health & Fitness
Debate In Depth Part 3: Show Us the Money
In this week’s issue of The Stoneham Independent there is an article discussing the $600K deficit that came up during last week’s Board of Selectmen meeting. You can read the article here, but it is a frustrating subject for me (and you can see in the article that I vocalized my concern with how it’s being handled.)
There was also a question surrounding this during the Stoneham Selectman Candidates’ debate last week, which interestingly enough took place the day after the BOS meeting the article references, and I’d touched upon that meeting in my answer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skb14cMswFY
I have been extremely consistent in my position on “budget transparency” from the get-go. Does the Town’s current method for sharing the budget qualify as “complete transparency?” The citizens of Stoneham deserve to see where their money goes.
Find out what's happening in Stonehamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
In the debate I referenced an initiative Woburn is piloting called Open Checkbook, and I firmly believe we need this. This program ensures open and transparent government. Our taxpayers are provided with a one page budget that just lists totals. How disrespectful is that?
One can barely come up with intelligent questions because they don’t know what the numbers are comprised of. More disturbing is that our BOS is asked to make recommendations based on data they really don’t understand.
Find out what's happening in Stonehamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
We need to look to other towns such as Reading which publishes a budget that provides a line item format, narratives, charts and challenges. People deserve to understand where their money is going and how their government is working for them. To expect that is complete transparency.
Citizens deserve our respect. To ask these questions is not bashing our town, it is about fiscal responsibility. That is the respect our citizens deserve.
