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“People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can’t live within its income.”

Robert Half, author

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I have been doing my best to watch the budget deliberations by the Windham town councilors and confess that it was not only difficult, but impossible as well. I guess the best comparison I could think of is watching a mouse running in one of those exercise wheels one can purchase in a pet or department store, and the mouse is going nowhere. The town councilors should have decided on May 27th (I submitted this column before that date) on some kind of municipal budget that the citizens of Windham can vote on at Town Meeting June 14.

I seem to recollect that the Windham town manager was asked by the town councilors to come up with a budget with no increase, which was substantiated by a town councilor. Instead the town manager’s budget had an increase, which bothers me because funds were bounced around in the budget for last year because some departments went over budget while others contained a surplus, which I have to surmise was on purpose.

What is worrisome here is that the Windham Town Charter specifically states: “At the request of the Manager and within the last three months of the budget year, the Council may by resolution transfer any unencumbered appropriation balance or portion thereof between general classification of expenditures between any offices, departments or agencies.” I have never seen the town councilors vote on any such thing. The charter also states: “The gross appropriation for each department shall not be exceeded except by consent by a majority of the Council.” Once again, I have never seen the town councilors do that.

After the somewhat comical attempt by the town councilors to hack nickels and dimes out of the manager’s proposed budget, I have a suggestion of my own which I will get to in a bit. I have finally realized that the budgets I dealt with in the military were far easier to deal with because there were no political views to clash with the mission that we had to complete. We went through increased payroll costs, personnel cuts and other such things as other government budgets have to deal with. We also didn’t have the clownish fits and spits that one witnesses with local and state budgets. My first suggestion is that the Windham town councilors get their act together to assure that everyone in Windham’s government adhere to the Windham Town Charter. First and foremost, the Maine Municipal Association recommends that municipalities switch auditors after a period of five years. I suggest Windham take a leap of faith and keep an auditing firm no more than two years. I also suggest that the same occur for legal representation. When it comes to the budget, I firmly believe that the town surplus is too large and shows a disdain for the taxpayers of Windham. Of course, the first thing citizens have to find out is what is the actual surplus figure and does the money really exist. I state that because one councilor said to me that the money really isn’t there. If we are talking about $5 million or so, I can only hope and pray that the money is still there.

My solution to Windham’s budget increase this year is to once again purge some funds out of the budget surplus. It’s either that or do some serious reductions in the salaries of the town manager and assistant manager as well as all the department heads. Please remember that every dollar in that surplus fund belongs to the taxpayers, not to the tax suckers.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham believes it’s high time to take the fat out of government.