by Frank Schroth

Not to beat a dead horse; but there has been quite a bit of interest in this issue and Cindy Christiansen, a Milton resident and statistician took some tie to look at the data and compile it in a manner that is more easily understood. We appreciated her analysis. Ms Christiansen notes that “The likely problem in the data is the DOR income for Milton in 2007.  The file: http://www.mass.gov/dor/docs/dls/mdmstuf/socioeconomic/07inc-08eqv.xls shows this to be about 2.3 billion whereas other years are around 1.4 billion or less.  The population numbers changed very little across the years.

Had the comparison been made to 2010 relative to other years of data available on the DOR website the changes would have been””

She goes on to note that “This doesn’t solve the mystery because I don’t know why the DOR income value for Milton in 2007 is so large compared to surrounding years.”

I did hear back from the Globe but they simply asked for the url to the original post which I had already sent them.

This issue does serve as an example of the value of a “Comments” section and why input from readers can be valuable. We may not have as complete a resolution to this as we might like but the input of the readership has been a valuable and appreciated asset.