The rich are not so different after all: Hamptons town struggles with $12M deficit -- Newsday.com: "East Hampton, one of the main towns on the eastern end of Long Island that make up the Hamptons, is burdened with a deficit that could exceed $12 million. And that has become a rich source of irony, given the community's spectacular wealth and its concentration of Wall Street money-management talent...The town operates its own airport, where Learjets and helicopters shuttle the beautiful people to their playgrounds. East Hampton also spends $100,000 a year for a day-care program for working families and $710,000 annually for free YMCA membership for all the town's children. A theater group for the handicapped gets $30,000 a year, and there are nutrition and transportation programs for senior citizens. The town replenishes its harbors with clams, oysters and scallops and recently bought $100,000 worth of beach rakes to keep the shoreline clean. In the fall, residents do not have to bag and dispose of their leaves themselves; the town lets homeowners rake them to the curb, where a giant vacuum truck sucks them up and hauls them away at a cost estimated by McGintee at $300,000 to $400,000 a year. Over the years, town leaders have been reluctant to raise taxes, because that could harm the many working-class folks struggling to pay their bills, and hurt the politicians on Election Day, too. But now they may have to cut services and increase taxes after all."
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Sounds like some pretty imaginative and generous spending has been going. Free YMCA membership for all the kids in town? An airport? Maybe a little budget-trimming is in order.
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