Immediately after Spring Training Starts

It's a trick of the calendar, I know, but like clockwork, Spring training baseball games start up the last week in February and right after that municipalities turn their attention to formulating budgets for the next fiscal year. 

I can already predict two things for any city in Connecticut (and stop me when you've heard this before), the proposed budget is "the tougherst we've had in a long time," just like the last dozen or so have been, and there will be a lot of uncertainty because here in Connecticut the Governor just proposed his budget last Wednesday and in recent years because of equal parts petulance, intransigence, and incompetence the legislature hasn't been in any hurry to approve a state budget which is the device that allocates money to the local governments who, in turn, have no idea how much to ask us for.

As I said, nothing new. 
As a matter almost a decade ago, having already watched the kabuki theater any number of times I offered a less than charitable assessment called:

Stuck Between Stations

"There are nights when I think Sal Paradise was right." It's almost time to name the dark fears we know are confronting us as we start to face up and address the approaching municipal budget formulation season 

For those making do with what we have for our own households and who are trying to hold the line on expenses, take those struggles and place them in a one-hundred million dollar frame of reference (now double that number) to better appreciate what Norwich is working with and against.

"Most nights are crystal clear." There are no good guys and bad guys when money gets tight. What there needs to be is a discussion and consensus that defines essential municipal services, details the levels those services should be offered with their costs and identifies those means to fund them. We may, as the poets write, cry for the moon—but we have finally acknowledged that we can only have what we can pay for.

For too many years, all of us have been spectators in a process that pitted various agencies of our own city government against each other. Too many didn’t think we could get involved or should get involved until the City Council public hearings on the budget. 

The trouble with that level of engagement is by the time those hearings are held, most of the budget discussions have been had and the decisions have been made. When we, the residents, don’t show up until the landing, it’s poor form to complain about the plane’s take-off or destination.
There's no point in posturing or hand-wringing or talking AT one another, rather than WITH one another. It’s NOT just the “schools” who have a budget problem, or “public works” or “public safety.” It’s ALL of us and if it helps, it's not just here and closing our eyes to the scale and scope of the problem will fix nothing.

The Golden Age of Glittering Generalities is a luxury none of us can afford. Specific goals, and means to achieve them, to include paying for those goods and services we want, is the only way to work through the current situation. 

That means plan on being active now so that when the discussions begin we can each offer informed suggestions instead of just shaking our heads no. We can all agree that we cannot afford everything we want. "Big heads and soft bodies make for lousy lovers." That means we'll need to lower our expectations and our voices and work together to pay for what we need without bankrupting ourselves today or tomorrow. 
-bill kenny