Good afternoon!  Had enuf snow??

The governor's Local Aid Estimates arrived in my inbox this AM. The Town of Wareham will receive, as proposed, an increase in Local Aid of $24,105. That is not a typo.

The $24,105 figure is a net amount. The Education items will receive an increase of $151, 441 over FY2011, a change of +1.22%. But, General Government items will DECREASE by $127, 336, or (-)6.07%.

Percentage-wise, the overall affect is an increase of 0.17%. Pretty skimpy.

It gets worse. Most news articles ignore the "Local Aid Assessments", which includes the items that the Town has to pay out for things like the COUNTY, school choice tuitions, charter school tuitions, regional transit, etc. The bottom-line number here is $74,619, an increase of 3.47% over FY2011.

So. $24, 105 coming in. $74,619 going out. That makes the Town a LOSER to the tune of $50,000 +/-.

A quick peek, not a study by any means, at other Towns shows that Wareham is getting the shaft. It is time to pressure the State Rep. & Senator to address this when the budget goes thru the House & Senate. Things are bad enuf woithout getting done in by the State, when others are not.