I’m just starting my review of the proposed budget, but so far, it kinda feels like things proposed to have a cut should get an increase, and almost everything that’s proposed to have an increase should instead go down … maybe not everything, but holy bananas, I do not see the values of Somerville reflected in this budget proposal. I think MAMAS has spent more money on food insecurity than the city itself proposes to next year, actually. That is pants on head.

#MApoli #SomerPoli #USpol (2/?)

Where are we putting our money? We apparently propose to invest only trivially in important public resources such as, you know, food security assistance, housing assistance, education, and environmental justice work. We are giving tiny amounts of money to the arts and building maintenance.

#MApoli #SomerPoli #SomervilleMA (3/?)

This budget proposes to lower health and human services. We are not keeping up with inflation on money put toward housing support. We’re not giving our teachers their well-deserved raises. We’re not paying them enough to keep up with inflation – some teachers aren’t getting any raise at all, apparently. This is banana-pants to me, I gotta say.

#MAPoli #SomerPoli #politics (4/?)

We’ve only spent $13M so far on policing this year, and the word “only” in that phrase is doing a ton of work, let’s just say.

It is June, the final month of the fiscal year. If we manage to spend another couple of million of dollars on policing this month, I have … questions.

#MAPoli #USpolitics (5/?)