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This case centers on the budget segment of the annual Town Meeting in a disguised New England community. Students are presented with the choices to be made about funding for road maintenance, snow clearance, and minor infrastructure projects for the coming year, along with the budget documents distributed to citizens at the meeting. (The documents are somewhat idiosyncratic, but well within the normal range for municipal budgeting in smaller communities.) In the case, citizens with a range of priorities (and a wider range of financial and economic sophistication) stand up to make sharply different comments or proposals based on the data presented to them. Through considering the case and through in-class discussion, students reflect on how incomplete (or slightly flawed) public sector accounting can distort civic debate. The very simple budgetary choices to be made, and the classic setting of direct democracy, highlights the contribution of data to collective choice and motivates non-specialized policy students to improve their understanding of public finance.