Last week was my first week as editor of this fine newspaper, and it was heartening to start my tenure off with a good news story coming out of the Windham Town Council. One that included those precious two words so near and dear to many Mainers’ hearts: tax relief.

It seems in the news business that our time as reporters is taken up mostly by government news. A lot of this government news, for at least two years now, has centered on the elusive proposition of “real tax relief.”

For some reason, certainly not the doing of either the Windham Town Council or Windham School Board, it seems that Windham property taxpayers will see a little break next year with the town’s overall mill rate going from $19 to $17.90. (A quick use of the calculator shows that’s a decrease of $165 on a $150,000 house. A $200,000 property, more average in this exploding real estate market, will see a $220 decrease.)

This relief for local taxpayers is being funded by more money coming from the state. One reason for the state’s “generosity” toward Windham is due to a $3.5 million increase in funding for education. The new funding formula, Essential Programs and Services, is responsible for that. The second major reason Windham is seeing tax relief is because of state participation in the debt service on the new high school. Obviously, these are welcome signs from above, but it’s just unfortunate it couldn’t have been more.

While the state’s funding has increased, so has Windham’s spending. Without the proposed 9.1 increase in the school side and an 8.1 increase on municipal taxes, Windham could have been looking at a significant savings of $2 or maybe $3 on the tax rate. Maybe more. Hey, we’ll take the $1.10, but a little less spending would have meant even greater tax relief.

There are those citizens who will never think any amount of tax relief is enough and I don’t want to be one of those. They clamor for more and more tax relief, never taking into consideration that taxes are necessary and, in fact, good for a responsible society.

Then, there are those people who don’t want tax relief, instead feeling that programs can and should be ever-bolstered. They believe that government should redistribute wealth to help lift everyone. Certainly, such an altruistic system as this would be wonderful, but seeing the human ego as it is, motivation will be sapped if all extra earning is redistributed.

Then, there are realists who understand society functions best when the poor and sick are taken care of and the rich give back a little. But, the middle class always carries the bulk of the burden. And in Windham, the middle class rules.

So, it’s disappointing when the town’s governing bodies propose a an almost 9 percent combined budget increase. This makes several years in a row that we’ve seen significant increases in local spending. Fortunately, this year we’ll see a temporary calm in property tax hikes because of the state’s contribution.

As a town and as a state, we need to consider our priorities. Can some of the services government provides come from other sources? Can churches step up more? Can foundations and the ultra-wealthy donate in the way Carnegie and Ford once did? Can our local governing bodies prune more? Take, for example, the $21,000 in savings the town will see with the demise of the two silver bullets. That was an actual real-life program cut that will save real money.

Maybe we can ask citizens to do more, take more responsibility for these little things that do add up? Is that a price we’re willing to pay? It might be, it might not be. Depends on what the majority want. But, as a town, if we don’t start making local tax relief a priority and focused goal, we may be seeing more “for sale” signs posted by people moving to Naples or Casco or Poland in a mad dash to escape ever-rising property taxes.