CNBNews Tips and Snippets: TownStats Available, Rams Baseball in the 'Limelight' , Et Cetera

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

by Bill Cleary

(cnbnews.net)YOUR WINDOW ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT-TownStats is an non-profit, non-partisan online database designed to give you access to important information on your town, its budget, and its taxes in a format that makes it easy to make comparisons with other towns. A project of The Independent Center, TownStats is a prototype that will soon be rolled out in other states. The project aims to provide the access and transparency that citizens need to participate fully in decison-making at the local level.

To help compare municipal spending, TownStats shows town-by-town spending in standardized categories and provides an easy comparison tool to evaluate differences. These tools are designed to give you and your elected representatives a clearer picture on potential areas to reduce taxes and/or improve services. For example, we did a quick search of three towns comparing Gloucester City, Bellmawr Borough and Collingswood Borough. The results are below. If you would like to do your own search go to this link http://www.townstats.org/

QuickSearch	Gloucester City	Bellmawr Borough	Collingswood Borough
County	Camden	Camden	Camden
Character	Urban Suburb	Surburban	Urban Suburb
Area (Sq. Miles)	2	3	2
Population Density	4,958	3,738	2,930
Municipal Budget	$17,840,000	$12,188,000	$15,690,300
Municipal Employees	155	86	138
Median Police/Fire Salary	$69,316	$79,588	$68,408
Media Non-Uniformed Salary	$40,811	$42,200	$32,428
Avg. Residential Property Value	$72,618	$170,700	$232,557
Avg. Property Tax Bill	$3,793	$5,281	$0
Index Crimes	348	240	551
Crime Rate (Per 1000)	30	22	40
Police Employees	33	25	38

RAMS IN THE LIMELIGHT-Baseball America has chosen Gloucester Catholic High School, Gloucester City, N.J. vs. Don Bosco Prep, Ramsey, N.J. as one of the 2012

Games to Watch this season. The game is scheduled for May 6. The location will be announced at a later date.

From the website, This game’s location is to be determined, but has two of the Northeast’s better teams facing off for Garden State bragging rights. Gloucester Catholic has a BA national title in it’s history while Don Bosco finished behind American Heritage in 2008. Scouts may not be jockeying for a spot behind the plate in this one, but there is at least a dozen D-I players between these two teams.

There are 29 other games mentioned besides the Gloucester Catholic/Don Bosco Prep contest. Some of the games simply feature teams that are among the Preseason Top 50 while others pit top draft prospects against each other. Keep in mind that high school baseball easily succumbs to foul weather and pitching rotations are an inexact science so none of those mentioned are guaranteed.

via www.baseballamerica.com

ET CETERA- When President Obama took office in January 2009, gas cost less than $2 a gallon. By summer, it's expected to exceed $4.

As of March 11, 2012, the U.S. national debt was $15,498,747,186,068. If you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

Salary of retired U.S. Presidents $450,000 FOR LIFE

Salary of House/Senate members $174,000 FOR LIFE

Salary of Speaker of the House $223,500 FOR LIFE

Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders $193,400 FOR LIFE

Average salary of a soldier serving

in Afganistan............................. $38,000

Average income for seniors on SS $13,000

~ SOURCE www.amac.us