The Finance Committee’s new approach to developing a budget—involving townspeople by way of a survey—is a great idea. The town faces the prospect of having to make cutbacks in some critical areas—public safety workers, library programs, services for the elderly. These will be difficult choices indeed, and it is only fitting that residents help decision-makers understand what services are most important to the town. We hope that when the surveys go out, people will give thoughtful consideration to their answers and return them quickly so that the budget presented to voters at the May Town Meeting will represent the views of as many people as possible.