Board of Selectmen Budget Workshop, October 28, 2024

Departments present preliminary budget proposals.

The board held a special meeting to begin work on the 2025 budget. Several department heads presented their preliminary budgets. These budgets will undergo several rounds of reviews and changes by the board and the Budget Committee before an operating budget and spending warrant articles are presented to the voters. 

The budgeting process is never easy, but this year it is especially difficult because inflation has been high. The budget that may be presented to the voters must not be more than 4% higher than the prior year’s budget, and the voters rejected last year’s operating budget. 

Town Administrator Ellen White advised the board that the Facilities Committee will be making suggestions to the board for warrant articles concerning facilities maintenance at the beginning of December and that she is anticipating a petitioned warrant article to restore funding to the Nottingham Community Newsletter, which was cut from the present year’s budget. 

Highway Department

Director Steve Rollins presented a preliminary budget of $923k, 10.4% higher than the current budget. The major change in the budget is to change the mowing schedule. Currently, the town mows along only a third of the town’s roads each year. This allows woody plants to grow so much that mowing is slow and difficult. Rollins projects that the entire system could be mowed every year for $2k (20%) more than it presently costs to mow just a third of it. However, to make that happen, the expense for the first year will be $25k - 2.5 times what is currently spent. 

Parks & Recreation Department

Director Kortney Dorow Duball presented a preliminary budget of $159.8k, 29.7% higher than the current budget. Nearly all of this is from moving the salary for the Assistant Director from the revolving fund into the operating budget. The revolving fund is income the department receives from user fees. The operating budget is tax funds allocated to the department. 

Paving some of the walkways by the Community Center that are heavily used for recreation was also proposed. Selectman Morin pointed out that this should be placed in a different part of the budget as it benefits more than just this department. 

The behavior of Town Beach users was briefly discussed. Neither the Recreation Department nor the Police had any substantive reports of misbehavior. 

Police Department

Chief Fawn Woodman proposed a $893k budget, 3.48% higher than the current budget. Almost all of this increase is associated with police cruiser costs. Past operating budgets have included a replacement cruiser each year - except for the 2024 budget where the cruiser was removed because the voters rejected the proposed operating budget. ARPA funds were used to acquire the cruiser instead. Woodman proposed putting a cruiser ($45k) back into the operating budget.

The department is scheduled to replace its 2021 model cruiser this year. It has 69k miles on it. The dealer has offered a trade-in value of $3k. As the vehicle has been relatively trouble-free, the Chief suggested some other department might wish to acquire it. The board discussed how disappointed they were with a trade-in value of $3k, while also noting that police cruisers get far more wear and tear than their odometers suggest, in part because they spend so much time idling. 

Woodman noted increased maintenance costs for the cruisers, in particular, $4700 recently to fix a transmission on a cruiser just barely out of warranty for which Woodman is trying to get Ford to cover.

Currently, the department is short one full-time officer of the nine budgeted for. 

Fire Department

Chief Matt Curry discussed the Fire Department’s 2024 budget status with the board but did not present a preliminary budget. 

Curry projected that the department would not exceed its total 2024 budget. However, maintenance costs will be higher than budgeted despite the department's increased ability to do more of it in-house. Prices for protective gear have also gone up significantly.

On the other hand, the department has significantly underspent on salary because of chronically unfilled positions, although this has caused increased overtime pay. Presently, the situation has improved, such that there’s only one full-time position unfilled. Training costs have come down since the pandemic. 

Curry said that he thought the department would function better if it had a Chief who worked at least part-time. (Curry is an on-call volunteer who receives an $11k/yr stipend for serving as Chief). 

Library

Trustee Jen Phillips and Direct Amanda Stevens presented. 

The major change proposed to the Library budget is to shift work formerly done by staff but now done by the trustees back to being done by the staff. This would increase salary costs by $8k. The hours of operation would not change. 

Other budget increases were driven by increased maintenance costs and fees for e-books, the spending for which is based on usage and is not a directly controllable expense. 

Issues with the parking lot were discussed. The parking lot overflows about four times a month. The current edge of the parking lot is too close to the library’s well. The well required DES testing, which it failed, requiring $3.45k in remediation costs. 

The library received a grant for an ADA sensory garden. This grant enabled the library to make its lower door ADA compliant. 

Recycling Center

The Town Administrator presented a preliminary budget only $1k higher than the current budget. The board discussed slightly increasing staffing by adding a mostly seasonal part-time employee to provide additional coverage for absences and peak periods. 

Problems with the center’s internet access were discussed. Sometimes the connection is so poor that credit cards cannot be processed. 

Executive

The Town Administrator presented a preliminary budget of $206k. The current budget is $192k.

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The election is Tuesday, November 5. See the voters guide.