A. Status

     The budget is an ongoing matter and many factors affect it: business conditions, state politics, demands of various groups, resistance of tax-paying organizations. Here are several questions that can be used as the basis of interviews with those involved in city or county finances. Select one or a group of questions for interviews with the appropriate people.

1. Is the government managing to balance the needs of those demanding services and the needs of those who provide the taxes to keep government in operation?
   1. Are services adequate or inadequate because of tax cuts and subsequent declines in numbers of municipal workers and in facilities and equipment?
   2. Are taxes onerous, threatening to increase? Are business conditions being affected by the tax structure?
2. What changes will have to be made as the result of experiences with the current budget?
3. Will any new programs require budget changes?
4. Is any decline in revenues anticipated?
5. Are costs in any particular budget area showing a steep increase or decline? Explain.
6. Is assessed valuation increasing as anticipated?
7. Are any long-range population or economic changes seen that will affect taxes or business conditions?
8. Are there any attempts under way, or is there any thinking about, regional cooperation to share the costs of services, such as solid-waste disposal, air-pollution abatement and recreation?
9. Are there any new kinds of taxes, such as nuisance taxes? Are new sources of revenue foreseen?
10. What specific pressures is the city or county going to be subjected to during budget making this year?
11. Have any studies been made of employee productivity? If so, what do they show? If not, why not?
12. Is there any attempt to shift local burdens to the state or federal governments? What costs could be taken over by these larger units?
13. Have there been any significant shifts in the major sources of revenue? How does the local experience compare with national trends?
14. What tax anticipation notes have been issued recently? What was the rate of interest on an annual basis? Have these notes been sold to the banks on a competitive basis?
15. Are there any special demands from either the money-providing constituencies or the service-demanding groups?
16. Has there been any significant shift in the so-called high-cost population, which usually demands or needs considerably more in local services than it can pay for in taxes?
17. Has there been any shift toward borrowing as a means of raising money because of the resistance to any increase in taxes?
18. How has the city fared in its relations with the state and federal government in receiving grants-in-aid? Is there any chance of greater assistance in the future?

B. Liquor Stores

     Liquor stores are clustered in poor, inner-city neighborhoods, several studies have shown, which leads to high alcohol consumption in these areas. Increasingly, criminologists are finding a relationship between alcohol abuse and family violence, youth crime, sex-related crime and dangerous neighborhoods.
     John J. Dilulio Jr. of Princeton says that "alcohol, like drugs, acts as a multiplier of crime.... Sixty percent of homicide offenders drank just before commiting the offense," and the same percentage of prison inmates drank heavily just before committing the crime for which they were convicted.
     These factors have led some community activists to urge a moratorium on liquor outlets and bars in the inner city.
     Your editor wants to check the validity of these assumptions about the relationship of crime and the proximity of liquor stores and bars. He tells you to map the city accordingly.

C. Scores

     Find out the scores of elementary and high school students in your city on the various federal, state and other tests these students take. How do they compare with the national average, with nearby states? Is the school system satisfied with the results? Are parents?