Survey Says: Residents Not Informed About Town Finances

Local government watchdog site townofandover.com recently posted a survey asking residents for their views on spending, town employee benefits and taxation.

Andover residents Bob Landry and Greg Rigby joined forces and launched the site last year to keep the public informed about what they say are issues crucial to the town's prosperity.

The survey had almost 250 respondents, 100 of whom responded via their Patch blog post.

The survey asks a series of questions gauging residents' knowledge of the town's finances and their thoughts on townofandover.com's ideas to solve fiscal issues.

A few highlights:

Almost 55 percent did not know that the average residential tax bill has increased 46 percent in the past 10 years. And 88 percent said that is too high.

Almost 65 percent said they did not know details of the town's health insurance payments toward employee premiums.

"Andover needs to forget about being too good to its public employees by using the emotional ploy that it is an elite community," one respondent commented on that.

63 percent said they were not aware that the town offers full benefits to employees who work 20 hours a week.

Check out the full survey here.