These days, unless you are a high-rolling CEO with a golden parachute strapped to your back, a politician with more homes than you can count, or as rich as Warren Buffett, you are feeling the devastating impact of the financial market meltdown. Even if you are managing to keep the proverbial wolf from the door, you are, like almost everyone else, one day away from possible ruin because each day seems to bring worse financial news than the day before.
The Boston Globe reported last week that Southeastern Massachusetts is being hit particularly hard by the crisis, with unemployment slowly creeping upward. Since August of 2007, the number of unemployed in Bristol, Norfolk, and Plymouth Counties rose by more than 8,750.
Said one young woman who recently left her job with a car dealership in Norwood, “There’s a gap between wages and the cost of living. Businesses are making cutbacks, and they see that they can get people to do the jobs of two, sometimes three people.”
This 22-year-old woman has more sense than some of the experts who promote the equivalent of building financial bomb shelters.
“Pay down your credit cards,” they counsel. “Don’t get a new car every two years,” they suggest. “Take a vacation in your own back yard,” they advise.
For people who are paying the minimum on their cards, driving a seven-year-old used car, and took their last vacation sometime in the ’90s, this advice is useless at best and infuriating at worst.
For some, all that is left is the hope that things will eventually get better, that the middle class will run out of financial institutions and companies to bail out, and that we will finally hit bottom so that we can turn this thing around, stop living in fear, and get on with the business of building our lives again.
That’s why it is so important to look beyond the present to the future, to plan for the time after this crisis passes, to have a sound foundation to rebuild upon, and policies in place to keep the worst from happening again.
Norwood officials are doing that as they work to formulate a new financial policy for the town. Developed by the Budget Balancing Subcommittee, the formal policy would state basic principles such as putting a cap on borrowing and maintaining healthy reserves.
Originally recommended by the town’s bond counsel to help retain or improve Norwood’s bond rating, the subcommittee has been working on the policy for nearly a year. They now have a final draft to be considered for approval by the Board of Selectmen, School Committee, Finance Commission, and Capital Outlay Committee.
Setting strict limits for debt payments, which should not exceed five percent of the budget, and keeping about five percent of the operating budget in reserves are among the guidelines established in the policy draft.
“I think it gives us a blueprint,” said budget committee chairman Judith Langone, “and I’m happy now we have something in writing.”
There are hard times coming in the next year for cities and towns, for the state, for this country, and for every American family as policy makers in Washington attempt to find solutions to the terrible mess that has been made over the last eight years. Hopefully, the new administration that begins its work in January of 2009 will formulate the policies and practices that put America back on track and provide guidelines to make sure future generations do not suffer a similar fate.
Norwood resident Candace Leary’s Midpoints column appears Mondays in the Transcript.
