HAMMONTON BLOG

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Hammonton to get less state aid

Date: 01:51 PM Mar 12, 2008

Is shared services with the state a good idea? :)

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Any possible means of saving money is worth looking into. Once all the facts are gathered, then decisions can be made.

Date: 08:43 AM Mar 13, 2008

Admin wrote:

Any possible means of saving money is worth looking into. Once all the facts are gathered, then decisions can be made.

Is that really the case? Or is looking at every penny spent and shared services something that should be attacked? Keeping taxes down requires keeping spending down. That certainly isn't as much fun as spending money but it is necessary. The town and school both unfortunately added a lot of debt before HF came to office. Maybe that was for okay stuff, and maybe those things are nice, but the bills have to be paid now. There really isn't a quick, easy fix to get things back on track. It requires cutting spending and utilizing grants to do projects to keep property taxes down. It also requires watching every penny even when some folks might want to leave things the old way. The country is going into tough economic times. Some people cannot afford the tax increases that for years came regularly. Rather than fight everything, why not try to come up with positive ways to help save money? For example, do we really need to buy more cars when we already own 44 cars and 2 motorcycles for a police force of 34 men?

Date: 11:16 AM Mar 17, 2008

hammonton news poll says readers want the cuts
64.2% want across the board cuts
22.6% want specific programs cut
government is too big cut it back

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The people who responded to the Hammonton News question asked for "across-the-board departmental cuts". In another poll 80% of the respondents did not want to see cuts in services if taxes do not go down. It seems that the people are looking for better efficiency from our government. They feel that the town can provide the services we have had for years with better efficiency and lower costs. But the respondents did not want to see reduced services for the same taxes.

Date: 02:54 PM Mar 17, 2008

You might want to read the poll for yourself at http://www.thehammontonnews.com/. About 63.6% say they want "across the board departmental budget cuts." Another 23.6% say they want to "cut specific programs or services." The remaining 12.7% asked for higher taxes. It sure seems like the vast majority want cuts either across the board or on specific programs.

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But In the other poll where the fact that services will be cut is aded to the question, the tax payers do not want their services cut.
It seems that the people are looking for better efficiency from our government. They feel that the town can provide the services we have had for years with better efficiency and lower costs. But the respondents did not want to see reduced services for the same taxes.

Date: 03:37 PM Mar 17, 2008

Anonymous wrote:
You might want to read the poll for yourself at http://www.thehammontonnews.com/. About 63.6% say they want "across the board departmental budget cuts." Another 23.6% say they want to "cut specific programs or services." The remaining 12.7% asked for higher taxes. It sure seems like the vast majority want cuts either across the board or on specific programs.

The Hammonton News poll seems to be about what the average person would expect. People are tired of paying taxes and hearing the constant screams for more spending in government.

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But, again, maintaining current levels of services does not need to lead to higher taxes.
Hammonton First obviously think there are only two solutions to running our government. You either have to reduce services to keep taxes level, or you have to raise taxes. They don't have the vision for finding new recurring sources of revenue for our town. They don't understand that controlled growth will ease the burden on the taxpayers and keep taxes from going up. They don't understand that eliminating debt frees up money to be used today instead of paying for things we bought many years ago. They ignore the fact that our debt uses up a large portion of our budget in interest charges, money we are putting out for absolutely nothing in return. They can't see that sharing services with the school district, other municipalities, the county, and the state can reduce our costs dramatically. They think the only area of our town worth promoting is the downtown and they have ignored the rest of town where we could be attracting a multitude of tax ratables to increase revenue. They have just built a brand new building without incorporating green technology that could reduce our ongoing costs. They don't realize that cutting the town's services makes this community less desirable to live in which reduces the possibility for new ratables and may actually reduce revenue by people leaving for other communities. This is the easiest way to run government, but not the right way. The right way is to do the hard work to make all of the above things happen.