Budgeting a local city/town? The best way to do it?

[Massachusetts]

I've been thinking about this. A lot of us would like to localize many of today's issues and I completely agree with this, most importantly on education.

If you are an elected official in a city government, what is the best way to stay fiscally responsible and conservative while still keeping the people of your city happy and prosperous, especially when a lot of policies are directed from the state and federal government that make it difficult to enforce fiscally conservative positions?

Maybe somebody with some experience in the field could talk. Anybody really. I just want to know. To me, it seems like if you're local you would not want to leave any money on the table unless you are putting it into future projects, but you also want to live within your means and the money provided to you by the state.

[hazek]

Privatize everything. That's the best way to do it.

[Keith and stuff]

Privatize everything sounds like a good answer to me

or maybe, if that doesn't work, privatize as much as possible and do this

If the school district is larger than 1 town, cut it down to one town. If the town only has a dozen or so students, don't bother doing this. Offer the students partial scholarships to go to schools in other towns. For example, maybe it costs $13,000 per student per year to educate a student at a school in your town. Offer the $9,000 scholarships or something for students to go to a school if a different town. Get the voters to enact a school budget cap. Get the voters to enact a school tax cap. Get the voters to enact a town budget cap. Get the voters to enact a town tax cap. Get all of the caps set to something the federal government frequently under reports, like inflation. If inflation is 4% per year, the federal government may report 2% per year. So even if the town government grows by 1.7% per year, is it really growing? Ideally, the town population is small. That way a town can contract out the police work to the state troopers or county police. There usually isn't a reason for a town to have it's own police. If crime goes up, elect a constable or two to handle minor issues so the contracted police can deal with the crime. Use a volunteer fire department that bills people ahead for coverage. Use a private ambulance service or if that isn't sustainable, and the volunteer fire department does the ambulance service, make sure the service bills people.

If a large percentage of the local meeting voters in the town are pro-liberty, use the traditional New England town meeting form of government. If not, use a government where people get to vote on a whole slew of issues, but in secret ballot form during regular elections.