LETTER: Town officials doing nothing to help save town money

Published: Thursday, November 18, 2010

To the editor:

The last 2-3 years the Town Council and Board of Education have been telling us how bad the economy is and how concerned they were about the budget. But, they don’t seem to give any indication as to when they will start taking the situation seriously.

This past week on Veteran’s Day my wife saw a town street cleaning truck doing its rounds. Since this is a holiday, are we to assume the driver was getting time and a half? When she called the town to complain, she was told they were cleaning out catch basins – they obviously weren’t. Even if they were, why on a holiday, if there was no emergency?

The Board of Ed is facing a big hole in its budget, yet it has seen fit to give a 3.5 percent raise to the administrators, a group earning over $150,000 each. This while asking teachers to take a zero percent increase after taking a 1 percent increase two years ago.

Perhaps the mayor, council and board should be reminded that for the second year in a row, seniors in town have gotten a zero increase in Social Security, the foreclosure rate in town has been increasing, and business throughout the area are feeling the crush of the economy as are their employees.

Yet our town’s officials appear to be doing nothing to stave off the looming budget crunch. The way things appear, are we to expect them to request a 7-10 percent tax increase for the next budget?

Elliot Check

West Hartford