Town Budgets Mild Winter

[John Mercier]

Originally Posted by TiltonBB

As an example of waste, I may have the year wrong but this occurred 10 to 15 years ago in the town where I was a Call Firefighter. We had excellent equipment and the last two pumpers bought were purchased in the previous 10 years. We really didn't need anything newer.

The Federal Government had a one year program that if you bought one fire truck you would get the second one paid for with Federal dollars. The Chief convinced the Selectmen that the deal was too good to pass up so we got two new trucks that we really didn't need.

There are many available examples of Government waste, both in equipment and personnel. In my opinion, more of a private industry perspective is needed in the Government. Yet, we keep electing the same career politicians, many of whom are not qualified to run a Dairy Queen.

We use a specially funded CRF. They are careful not to waste it, because it doesn't get replenished by taxpayers.

[LIforrelaxin]

In all forms of government there is waste. Anyone that doesn't believe so or believes they live in a community that is better then the rest is fooling themselves. The question is how visible is the waste, and can it be sheltered from sight.

Sometimes the waste in way of capital expenditures, sometimes it is in the way of personal that is not needed... in the end it isn't the purpose of an audit to point out the waste, Audits on ensure that the money was spent for the items it was appropriated for, and that all the money is accounted for.

If 100% of every towns budget was audited I would be surprised. Auditing is often done at a high level... leaving plenty of low level ways to hide and misuse money...