The Finance Committee is a volunteer group of nine appointed by the Town Moderator Attorney William Litchfield who presides at all town meetings. Their job is to review the budget recommended by the Board of Selectmen to the Annual Town Meeting in May and to deliver their independent comments and recommendations to town meeting members. The Board of Selectmen is reviewing the budget in parallel and will finalize its recommendations on the budget and other articles for the Town Warrant (the matters to be acted on at the Annual Town Meeting) before April 1. So a great deal of reviewing has to be done in a two-month period.

Chatham has an open town meeting. That means any registered voter of the town can show up, speak and vote. This is unlike some large towns which instead have a representative town meeting, to which members are elected from districts and "represent" the voters in their district. Chatham is quintessential New England.

This past Thursday the Finance Committee met under the leadership of Chairman Coleman Yeaw to set up the schedule of meetings to review the "budget" for FY10. "Budget" is in quotes because it's not a budget in the usual sense, it's a spending proposal. All of the information contained in the Town Manager's Summary delivered to the Board of Selectmen earlier in the week was about spending. Hardly any mention was made of where the money is coming from.

Most of the money that pays for running the town comes from the property tax. There are substantial additional revenues such as the town's share of the state's hotel/motel tax and annual excise fees for motor vehicles registered in Chatham.

The selectmen and the Finance Committee members do get revenue as well as detailed spending information in impressive, big black-backed "budget books" about six inches thick, but that information is not generally available to the public, although it is public information. Ordinary taxpayers have to dig it out one way or the other, if they can. The information could be made available inexpensively by putting it on DVD discs since it is all in electronic form now.

Because there is so much to review in a short period of time and this fiscal year's spending plan is being presented at a time of financial disaster, the Finance Committee is wisely starting an informal review now, not waiting for the Board of Selectmen to finalize its recommendations. To do so would be a disservice to the taxpayers since their time of review would be so short.

All sessions of the Finance Committee are broadcast live on Channel 18, usually every Thursday during this period of Annual Town Meeting preparation at 7 p.m. at Town Hall and promptly posted on the town's website thereafter. For example, the meeting of Thursday, January 22nd is already posted and available for viewing. Check out the town's website where all videoed meetings can be found, including Thursday's two-hour meeting of the Finance Committee.

Chairman of the Board of Selectmen Sean Summers attended the meeting, as did a handful of Chatham taxpayers (three, actually). All four made comments during the meeting at the kind invitation of the Chairman stressing the need for fiscal prudence and restraint. The very rich growth of the town's spending over the past several years was supported in good part by the second home construction boom, which has pretty much faded away. With the financial burdens on taxpayers, should the town be imposing tax increases on taxpayers this year? Is it a time for a pause, a time for holding the line? Fiscal 2010 looks grim, but who can predict that Fiscal 2011 will be any better?

No one from the town's Finance Department attended the meeting.

Members of the Finance Committee made clear in their comments that they know this is a different time for Chatham taxpayers. Stock market values and savings have been devastated and homes aren't worth what they were a year ago. Taxpayers are shaken and are looking to save money where they can and to get good value for their dollars -- and that includes town services.

Far and away the biggest item in the Town Manager's spending plan is Education, which is almost 100% (but not quite) the Schools Department. Of the $32.757 million proposed by the Town Manager, $10.087 million is for Education (almost all of which is for the schools). The Town Manager has not conducted any independent review of the schools' request; only the School Committee has reviewed it. But that's 31% of the spending plan, an incredible increase over FY09 of more than 10%. So Chairman Yeaw has scheduled the schools for the first day of spending review, which will take place this coming Thursday, January 29 at 7 p.m., Town Hall and Channel 18. No doubt there will be a second and even perhaps a third day of review needed to get all the facts out so town meeting members will know whether they will support giving the schools what they are asking for.

The Town Manager's spending plan calls for a 4.3% increase over FY09 and does involve increases in the property tax. In addition, there may well be articles in the warrant not in the Town Manager's spending summary that if approved could mean even further increases in property taxes.

So the Finance Committee (as also does the Board of Selectmen) has a very serious challenge in dealing with a plan for significantly increased spending (and increased property taxes) at a time of state cuts in local aid and likely fall-offs in hotel/motel tax and other revenues.

Chatham's concerned taxpayers should show up and ask questions at meetings of the Selectmen (Tuesdays at 4, Town Hall and Channel 18 and extra meetings to be scheduled) and of the Finance Committee. Concerned taxpayers should show support for their representatives making the tough decisions necessary to avoid additional financial burdens on the taxpayers of the town.

The next several weeks are crucial in sifting through the facts to find out what's essential and what's not, what burdens the taxpayers should bear and what the town's departments, including the schools, can do without. Other Cape Cod towns are facing difficult decisions as are cities and towns across Massachusetts and the country, so Chatham is far from being alone in contemplating action which may very well be unpleasant or worse.