Tom Morrison: Support Plymouth's upcoming municipal budgets

To The Daily Sun,

I wanted to reach out to encourage you to support our municipal budgets on April 17. Voting for this will take place at the Plymouth Elementary School from 9 a.m. to noon.

The budget process begins approximately seven months prior to Town Meeting when the various town departments have discussions internally regarding wants and needs. Input is received from many personnel including those with specific areas of expertise. From here the budget is presented to the Advisory Budget Committee. The department heads meet with them, sometimes on multiple occasions, and review the budget line by line. Once the ABC has completed their review the town manager and the select board may refine the budget further. From there the process continues to multiple public budget hearings and Town Meeting. The departments also answer budgetary questions on a routine basis during the course of their regular duties. This is a lengthy process, but the scrutiny is welcomed. I thought it important for those who were not aware of this process to please know that by the time the budget draft is presented at the public hearings it has been through several iterations.

I would encourage you to vote yes on Article 2 which authorizes the meeting form, as well as support the budget requests of the different departments. (Voting no on Article 2 means all subsequent articles fail, which will affect operations significantly.) We can all be proud of the service that each of our departments provides to our residents and visitors.

Thank you for this consideration, and for your support. Please reach out should you have any questions or concerns.

Tom Morrison

Plymouth