The preliminary budget presented to the Town Board by Supervisor Jim Dougherty last week raised some questions that have nothing to do with the politics of the election season but with the process of preparing a realistic budget.

He said his spending plan called for a 1.2 percent increase in expenditures, which sounds reasonable when costs inevitably rise and times call for a very tight budget. But his spending total, $9,698,362, is less than the budget total of $10,449,830 for 2011.

That’s a decrease of 7 percent. Where did the supervisor come up with the “modest 1.2 percent increase in spending” that he spoke of? Asked about that in an email, he essentially said don’t worry too much about the numbers now; it’s just a preliminary budget.

There were other peculiarities. How could total spending for the Highway Department be lower in 2012 than it was in 2011 without serious service cuts or layoffs? Yet a decrease is what the supervisor’s preliminary budget calls for: $2,458,412, a hefty 13.5 percent less than the $2,843,408 shown in the November budget summary for 2011. It is down 16.4 percent from another number, $2,941,383, that the supervisor’s proposal lists as the budgeted amount in 2011.

Last Thursday, the Town Board spent time with Highway Superintendent Mark Ketcham trying to figure out what the numbers really should be so the board can adopt a final budget in November that makes sense.

Maybe it’s the height of honesty and candor for Mr. Dougherty to say the budget is just a rough work in progress that the entire Town Board will knock into final form. That is the way the process has worked since his election in 2007 and the final result has been solid. The town is in decent financial shape and past budgets developed this way have been good estimates.

But compared to the way the budget process has worked with other supervisors in this town and elsewhere, it’s strange to see this town’s chief fiscal officer so hands-off about his own proposal. Maybe the process would work even better, with less potential for political strife and posturing — and less head-scratching make-work for the Town Board — if the supervisor submitted a well-wrought plan he was ready and willing to fight for.

4-posters

Shelter Island knocked a serious dent in its tick population with its three-year 4-poster experiment under which 60 baiting stations were deployed across the Island to apply permethrin to the heads and necks of deer as they fed.

County and private funding helped pay that bill. When the study ended, the Town Board cut back to a mere 15 units.

That’s not enough. They won’t protect the gains the town has made in this public health battle. The town’s Deer & Tick Committee wants to see 30 units deployed on half the Island every other year. It’s a great idea. Any lesser program will prove ineffective and a waste of money.