Neglect

" and everyone supposeth that his own neglect of the common estate can do little hurt and that it will be the care of somebody else to look to that for his own good, not observing how, by these thoughts of everyone, in several, the common business is jointly ruined."

Pericles~

Thank you SAD#15

Having occasion to read the recent article about the School Budget in the Gray Independent I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

SAD 15 took a 1.2 million dollar reduction in their budget this year as compared to last. By making hard choices and the tough decisions that so many are forced to face these days, the School Department has come through for the Taxpayers of both Gray and New Gloucester. This fine bit of work is to be applauded on many different levels.

By realigning and reallocating existing resources the Superintendent of schools Victoria Burns has proved by example that such cuts in spending can be made. Not only that, but they are spending less without sacrificing services or programs. This brings a higher fair market value upon the tax dollars we as a community contribute to the education of our children.

Ben Franklin once wrote: "A penny saved is a penny earned" so it seems fitting that the education department be the first to grasp that concept this budget season.

In these times of economic chaos, when the mania of borrowing and spending the nation out of debt has gripped our society, the refreshing news from our School Department invigorates me. They have shown themselves not just good stewards of our Children, but also of our community as a whole.

In short, we congratulate Superintendent Victoria Burns, her staff, and all the people involved in the school budget process this year for a job well done. We know it was not an easy thing to do but through hard work and determination, you all made it through, and we the Taxpayers of Gray appreciate your strong effort to cut costs and save all of us money during these uncertain times.

Let us now hope that the other departments of our fair town will follow suit and take measure of, the fine example set forth by SAD #15.

Allen R Butler

Time is Money.

Time is money, as the old saying goes, and each of us places a particular dollar value on our time. We do this as a matter of course, almost subconsciously, every day as we make choices as to how we are to approach the issues of our lives. There are hundreds of different ways to calculate what a persons “Time” is worth either to themselves or to others.

Some people break down a project or task by using the simple formula of hourly wage x the amount of time to complete = the sum value of their time on said project. This can also be applied to a purchase by dividing the cost of the item by one’s hourly wage. (Purchase cost / hourly wage = sum total time) No matter what formula you as an individual use to come up with your figure of self worth the fact that we do so as a society, and make decisions based upon the data from said calculations, is very interesting indeed.

Now, the examples above are by far the simplest of the lot and these definitely do not take into consideration some of the other factors associated with time value. I use these for, to try and apply the hundreds of other factors such as; lost value time vs. labor (i.e. time you would not be making the hourly wage anyway as compares to the labor you apply to your project) would create a very long piece. I haven’t the time to “Spend” on such an endeavor at this moment.

The gist of the argument is that we as a society understand that our time has value which in this day and age we translate into a numerical figure and currency. And that we are not going to either “waste” our time on projects or issues that do not at least return that value or “spend” our time frivolously if we can avoid it. If we were to “Waste and Spend” not only would that subvert our communal understanding of costs but it would also undermine the principles of industry that the citizens of Gray embrace fully.

So what you have to ask is; what is your time and labor worth?

Make your calculation then ask how many hours you have to work each year just to pay your tax bills?

Are you getting full dollar value from the government for those hours? Would it not be profitable to you to spend some of those hours looking at the Town Budget proposals especially if it could save you money come tax time? For if you through labor are able to save a sum in excess of the time put into the research then you can actually increase your hourly value and thereby your net worth.

The bottom line here is that Time really is Money, and if you ignore this most simple of facts, a pauper not only will you be, but so too will you make of others.

Allen R Butler
Gray, Maine

A Police Force for Gray?

The question has arisen as to whether the time has come for the town of Gray to add a dedicated police force to the list of services it provides to its citizens. The options I have heard range from one officer with 40 hours/week of coverage to four officers providing 24/7 coverage, and proposals have been submitted by both the Maine State Police and the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department to contract the service. Presently police services are provided both by these entities on an on-call basis.

One argument for adding a dedicated Gray police presence is that the town is consuming more that its fair share of these agencies' resources, which are shared by other towns in Cumberland, Androscoggin, and Oxford counties in the case of the State Police which service Gray, and the rest of Cumberland County in the case of the Sheriff's Department. Another is that other Maine towns the size of Gray either have their own police department, or a contract to provide local police services. Finally, the Maine State Police have warned of significant delay if we continue with the present system..

On the surface there appears to be a compelling, or at least plausible, argument to at least have some level of local, dedicated police coverage to relieve some of the burden from the agencies, and provide more timely, effective service. However, this does not come without cost: the estimates range from $85,000/year to $440,000/year depending on the hours/week of coverage and which agency is contracted. To put this in perspective, these costs would represent approximately 1.5% to 7.6% of the 2008-2009 Town budget. I'm not an expert on town finances, but I presume this would be the amount, more or less, Gray property taxes would increase should we choose to accept one of the proposals. In these economic times we should be discussing reducing, not increasing, property taxes, as both income and the value of investments for most of us are smaller (in some cases significantly smaller) in 2009 than they were in 2008, and, although no one can predict the future, the outlook I've heard predicted for 2010 isn't much better.

I find it a bit awkward to find myself arguing against a more locally-controlled and funded police force. First, I believe police protection is one of the few valid purposes, and arguments for the existence, of government.* Second, I think in most cases the more local we can make the funding and control of government, the better-off we all are. I would prefer to see our Council cut all unnecessary/invalid services out of our town budget and instead fund a local police contract sized to a level that makes sense for the town.

Since I fear that won't happen any time soon enough, I would argue that we maintain the status-quo until we can get to that point, or at least until the economy improves. Supporting this approach is the evidence that shows no increase in violent crime locally over the past three years: the total for rape, robbery, and aggravated assault cases in Gray investigated by the Sheriff's department for 2006, 2007, and 2008 were 3, 5, and 3, respectively. For the State Police I only have data for 2008 incidents, and there was one homicide, and one case of missing with foul play indicated for last year. In addition, although the number of total Sheriff's department calls for service spiked from 2349 in 2007 to 2833 in 2008, there is no evidence that this is an upwards trend - the mean value of annual calls for the years 1998 - 2009 is 2521, with a low of 2189 in 1998 and a maximum of 3069 in 2001. The number was as low as 2218 as recently as 2005. Gray calls for service by the State Police were 1504, 1360, and 1891 for 2006, 2007, and 2008 respectively (I have no data prior to 2006).

Finally, I do have a concern with the apparent redundancy between the Sheriff's department, State Police, and now, the possibility of a locally-funded police service. The State Police are funded by our Maine state taxes, and the Sheriffs department is supported by Cumberland County which receives an allocation from each town (therefore, in part though Gray property taxes). It's my understanding that the our allocation to the county will not be reduced if we elect to have a local police presence, and if we do, we may or may not receive as much coverage from the Sheriffs department. We certainly won't realize any consequential reduction in any Maine State tax either, even though we would in all likelihood be consuming fewer State Police resources. So, by choosing to add local police, we may be contributing, albeit indirectly, to government bloat and inefficiency.

I think the evidence shows the town of Gray needn't and shouldn't rush into a police contract at this time; rather, we have time to consider the potential solutions and all their consequences without further burdening the taxpayers in these difficult economic times.

-Larry Szendrei
Taxpayer, Gray. ME

*Government at any level, that is. I also think it's long overdue to devote careful and logical thought to the purpose of government, and exactly which services justify taking property by force to pay for them. Perhaps this issue will be the one to initiate the debate locally. One can only hope.