Suburban towns often spend a large fraction of their municipal budgets on public safety...

Suburban towns often spend a large fraction of their municipal budgets on public safety (police, fire, and ambulance) services. A taxpayers’ group felt that very small towns were likely to spend large amounts per person because they have such small financial bases. The group obtained data on the per capita expenditure for public safety of 29 suburban towns in a metropolitan area, as well as the population of each town. The data were analyzed using the Minitab package. A regression model with dependent variable ‘expendit’ and independent variable ‘townpopn’ yields the following output:

a. If the taxpayers’ group is correct, what sign should the slope of the regression model have?

b. Does the slope in the output confirm the opinion of the group?