( - promoted by Dean Barker)
I was perusing the Concord Monitor online and saw a headline about how the NHAC submitted their "tax cap" petitions in Concord.
In the op-ed section, I came across this piece by Joanne Randall, an Epsom selectwoman. She says how difficult it is for the town to have emergency services on a default budget. Epsom was hit by the recent tornado.
Epsom residents should know that our budget for these departments (fire and police) is dangerously low because we are on the fourth year of a default budget. These departments are understaffed because the town does not approach the average wages for comparable departments across New Hampshire. They are working with less equipment because they are using the money to buy fuel, since we have not been able to increase their budget line for fuel in four years - even though fuel has almost doubled in that time.
In addition, the number and types of incidents that the fire and police departments must respond to have increased. We have also had to deal with three natural disasters in four years. Not all the cost of those has been covered by the state or federal governments.
Now I have to say, being from "away", the one thing that shocked me the most about NH was that each single town has to run its own police, fire, and other departments. Where I come from, counties do a lot of that heavy lifting and it's from a larger pool of money.
The cost of fuel is insane now, let alone springing for a fire truck or dump truck. I don't know what the answer is because of the structure of government, but it is dangerous for municipalities to skimp on public safety measures. Even depending on volunteer firefighters and EMTs is dicey because so few people work near where they live.
It seems NH has been able to keep an 18th century governmental structure going longer than most states, but it will catch up (or is catching up) with us eventually. Most people don't live on and from their farmsteads any more.
The positive side is we can try to imagine a way that is suitable to this century. Any thoughts?
|
Blue Hampshire RSS