Saturday, July 19, 2008

On State Aid, Energy And Housing

Municipalities in this state are dealing with a lot of budgetary angst of late and it is interesting to see some of imaginative ways that some are incorporating to deal with it.

With so many negative influences coming to bear on their funding sources and expense outlays, some governing bodies have begun to react on behalf of the pocketbooks of their residents, while others merely talk about the situation and seemingly do nothing.

Some immediate actions include the closing the town hall on Fridays and lengthening the 4 remaining workdays to compensate for the shortened availability of municipal office availability and workers time. (Hmmm, at the end of the week, aren’t the lights, computers, air conditioning, etc still being used for the same amount of hours?)

Others are looking at possible fuel alternatives for their police cars (hybrids, propane, etc). The patrols are needed, but the costs are killing budgets across the state.

With state cut backs in aid to towns, costly energy crunch and a severe downturn in a housing market that, with a retiring baby boomer sales glut, will continue to be depressed for the foreseeable future, I’m thinking that towns need to look at generating electricity themselves (solar, wind, etc) to sell it back to the utilities at the state mandated retail rate.

Open areas that are currently designated as "areas in need of redevelopment" can be developed as energy farms – solar panels, wind turbines – that will require much less zoning/planning headaches, school population impact and environmental concerns, traffic/parking concerns.

IF the initial set-up of such a program can be done with grants and subsidies from state and federal sources to help offset some, if not most, of the start-up costs for the municipality, the eventual return from the sales of generated power could provide meaningful relief for the average town and in turn, its’ residents.