Rethinking Town Independence

As voters head off to town meeting, the single biggest item on the warrant most likely will be the town’s operating budget. And in that budget, spending on public safety tends to top everything else. All told, towns and cities spend way over 400 million dollars a year for police, fire and related services.

Michael King, Executive Director of the North Country Council, says as the economy gets worse, more towns will need to think about cooperating with their neighbors.

KING: Things like ambulance services, and police services and fire services, in tough times are things that towns are just going to have to look at.

King says for example, several north country towns already share one police department.

Just talking about that idea is hard. You don’t fool around with 200 years of tradition, not to mention hundreds of jobs, and expect it to be easy.

With this town meeting minute, I’m Jon Greenberg.

Municipal Spending 2007

PUBLIC SAFETY $443,074,886
GENERAL GOVERNMENT $316,072,070
OPERATING TRANSFERS OUT $237,305,355
HIGHWAYS & STREETS $210,836,954
SANITATION $167,127,778
CAPITAL OUTLAY $150,037,564
DEBT SERVICE $104,998,630
CULTURE & RECREATION $89,409,630
WATER DISTRIBUTION & TREATMENT $46,274,830
WELFARE $17,890,172
HEALTH $13,541,731
CONSERVATION (incl Housing, Eco Dev) $11,139,604
ELECTRIC OPERATIONS $6,486,994
AIRPORT/AVIATION CENTER $2,252,017
Source: NH Center for Public Policy Studies