Town budget season should be a time for debate, dueling philosophies and innovative ideas.

It's not.

Budget season has become mostly an exercise in rubber stamps and congratulatory self-hugs. That's because 95 percent of the budget has been decided months or years ahead of time, when town and union leaders ink those ubiquitous three-year contracts.

Once finalized, those contracts govern the vast majority of taxpayer spending every year. Unfortunately, even those are devoid of much drama these days.

Pay raises are mostly automatic — they may spend months "negotiating" it, but it will be somewhere between 2 and 4 percent. Employee contributions to health coverage may change slightly every three years. Pensions undergo mild reforms. Work rules and seniority rules change slightly. And for the most part, the gravy train keeps rolling.

It seems that's really the case with the whole budget and taxpayer spending in general. Consider town spending over the past 20 years. In 1995, the town budget was $22.7 million. This year, the town budget projects at $49.6 million. That's a 3.99 percent compounded annual growth rate. In other words, town spending grows 4 percent every year.

There may be years it grows 2 percent, years it grows 5 percent, but over the long haul, it averages 4 percent per year. And this occurs despite advances in technology, consolidation of departments or bold, election-year talk about "expanding the commercial base" or "regionalizing services."

Few of these bold, money-saving initiatives come to fruition, and if they do, they don't seem to slow the steadily-moving freight train. No matter what, spending goes up 4 percent per year.

Want to know what your tax bill will be in 20 years? That's an easy answer. It'l be 4 percent, plus 4 percent, plus 4 percent, plus 4 percent ...