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Get Their Attention

It seems like only yesterday that I reached that time when it looked like, with prudency, I would enjoy, if not a lavish retirement, at least a financially secure one. How things can change, a few years of a ruinous economy with rampant inflation has eaten into all retirees limited funds.

And now the next installment, Guilford budget time, to add the "cherry on top!" This, for me, is on top of a greater than 11.5% increase last year, regardless of my home of 32 years seeing no significant change. I wonder how many other residents saw such an increase despite our First Selectman's reassurances at the time.

We read of the significant reduction in Guilford school's enrollment, so with school funding being by far the biggest part of the budget, we may have hoped that would lead to at least one year with no increase. Some hopes!

Of course, there are many well-off people in town for whom another increase is no big deal, and for some parents, there is no limit to school spending that will satisfy them. While this may be true, and while we must accept that our leaders have a responsibility to properly fund our towns' functions, perhaps they need to be reminded that they also should consider us ordinary folk trying to keep our bills paid.

Perhaps the only way to get their attention will be to reject the budget at the upcoming referendum on Tuesday April 16.

David Roberts

Guilford