3 ring circus time is here! Queen of Hearts and Wonderland cast ready for action! Mushroom tea being warmed, hookah smoking caterpillar on the way. 2015 red meltdown is not far Jodi, "we stand at the gates of armageddon and we battle for the lord"

Dare not stand against the queen

Hi "Bull Moose" and "Sam",

Thanks for your comments!

Just to play Devil's Advocate here, what are your ideas for the budget in the next few years?

A quick note: if you're a Westford resident and you want to vote in the Town Meeting, you have to come down here to the Abbot Gym. I have about 30 minutes left on my watch until we start, and things are beginning to fill up here.

My ideas for the budget to a HIRING FREEZE on new positions for the next 2 years (Especially on the School Side of the budget) that way when contracts are up next year we wont be quite so boxed into the corner and needing to beatup our public employees at the table or mass layoffs.

Our feel good team up in the center of town are at it again. Different bat channel. I believe the towns people voted on medical marijuana with a whopping 66% voting yes, but here we have some more feel good policy by not allowing it to be sold in westford. Nevermind what the voters tell you, just do what you want.Its not the subject at hand. Its the audacity of not listening to people ( voters ) of the town and just doing what they see fit.THIS HAS TO STOP !

When we gonna see Harkness do another Patch Chat? I am hearing rumblings next year teachers contract negotiation is gonna get rocky and bumpy and work to rule will likely be longer than a week... Got some questions for the School Chair before that

I went to the meeting today, and my takeaway was that the State dictates about 80% of our "votes." As a town, we really have no say in how we appropriate our budget items. In reality, if the state says we have to increase x by 10%, then we have to increase x by 10%. If we have to spend on this, or allocate for that, we have to. There really is no choice. The slogan, "act locally, change globally" is a fantasy. The fact is, that until the populace stops electing statists to the governor's office and Beacon Hill, we as a locality, will have to contort ourselves to make the budget balance, or reduce to sane levels. All of this, as noble as it tries to be is just a show, in the meantime.

my takeaway was instead of firing up my cell phone in the car to check for any emergency information in the next storm, i should purchase - or borrow from Jodi - a hand crank am radio. It is progressive and a true wise investment (not). I'm curious how many more smart phones are out there now vs. the 2008/9 storms.

Numbers need to be attached to these things so people know what they are dealing with. Not many people are able to look at a town budget & understand it beyond the obvious. I'm tired of the town taking advantage of that. The info is on line but I wasn't sure if they went over it before the vote. Like why are we spending millions of dollars on wetlands, or buying property at all...I thought we were broke?

#2 Unpaid Bills from previous years - What bills, why weren't they paid, how much will it cost, where is the money coming from?
#3 2013 Supplemental Appropriations - Was this explained?
#4 2013 Budget Transfers – For what? Where was the budget off?
#10 Amend Wage Classification Plan – What does this mean monetarily, & for who?
#12 Authorize Revolving Funds – Was this explained?
#25 Acquire Acton Road Parcel – From who? What for? How much?

Watching the way they use numbers for the town budget presentations makes me physically ill. These insurance increases are in part due to hiring more people (which almost everyone is against) not just increases in the insurance rate.

IMO it's dishonest to say insurance costs went up this much - when a significant portion of that is b/c you hired 25 more people. It may be grammatically true, but it's like saying the cost of pencils doubled last year, when in fact you just bought twice as many pencils.

I'd love to run the real #'s, but I need to know what plan everyone was on. Single/Family? HMO/PPO

Anyone have that?

That's not what I meant. There's amendments voted on that weren't in previous docs. I know what each article is, does every body at the TM?

E.G. Article 10, the raises @ water dept, the meeting was ok w/giving the Water Dept Manager a $6k-$9k raise? The existing band had $21,000 of leeway, is the band shift needed? What was he making before & now? Are these details divulged?

So is it verbally gone over first? Or hope everyone has it memorized, or brought their copy?

Vincent - It wasn't mailed to every resident in Westford ; ) But I had this document weeks ago. There are details missing.

Town insurance enrollments. Anyone know how I can get that. No names, just how many people are on which plan.

Through that I can gleen from the numbers if there was an increase in rate at all. For instance for year 2011 - 2012 they report a 4.7% increase.
2011- $7,378,422 - 962 subscribers = $7,669.88 per subscriber average
2012 - $7,724,184 - 985 subscribers = $7,841.81 per subscriber average
Cost went up, but so did subscribers. That happens w/new hires especially w/family plans. They should be using the set of numbers I gave you which is a 2.2% increase.

Of that increase how many were new hires? If it's an ins. increases you created, but can't afford, not the town's problem. Other towns are not reporting increases like us.

I recall a quote saying something like "Insurance costs over the past 5 years have increased 18%" That can happen when you hire 100 people.