Letter to the Editor: If you haven’t looked, look again!

Have you seen the Wareham Fire District Annual Budget that was in the Wareham Week dated March 26th?  If you haven’t please do so.  

Funding from Washington has been slashed to states which means state funding to towns and cities will be cut.  This leaves a greater burden on local taxpayers.  The budget proposed by the Wareham Fire District for next fiscal year includes more than a 12% increase in spending. With all of the cost of living increases that residents and taxpayers have been experiencing this increase is unacceptable.    

Yes residents realize that there is some added cost increases for the different departments operating within our town but inflation is still below 3%.  So the real question is what is being done to control costs, find inefficiencies and reduce costs or at a minimum keep costs where they currently are? Continuing to increase water rates to pay for inefficiencies is not the answer.

There has been no effort to reform the current situation regarding the fire departments and water departments within the town yet it costs taxpayers more than a million dollars a year in additional costs thru duplication of positions, medical costs and retirement pensions costs. Why? Why does the town have two separate fire departments and two water departments and why aren’t they part of town government along side all the other departments? Are the taxpayers that wealthy in this town that they can throw away more than a million dollars a year? Nothing has changed because people managing the two separate systems over the years have had no incentive to do so and leaders of the town simply haven’t wanted to have that fight and probably ruffle some feathers. 

So that leaves it to you, the taxpayer! Are you tired of paying higher fees for water?  Are you tired of wasting more than a million dollars a year when that money could go to other more important items like maybe our children’s schools?  It’s not going to change by itself, it hasn’t yet. If someone in the town administration is not going to stand up and start the process to get the town charter changed and end this nonsense then the taxpayers must do it themselves. And until the taxpayers take a stand and say “enough” nothing will change.

Al Latini, West Wareham