2007 Budget Transparency

On the threshold of the 2008 budget process, I'm working on a report to make the town budget easier to understand. The trick is to make it simple enough to hold the reader's attention for a minute while including enough information to be informative.

Setting aside the water, sewer, lighting and emergency services districts, because they only affect people living in the districts, the graph looks like this. It seems self explanatory to me except, perhaps, for the Fund Balance - the money available this year from prior years' surpluses. Does that make sense?

I think I want to add in the ambulance district (the entire town) and fire district (entire town except the McLean fire district.) What do you think?

For the sake of simplicity and objectivity I'm using the dollar totals. I'm trusting that people who want to can calculate the total and the percentages.

Watch this space for corresponding coverage of expenditures.