Board of Selectmen Budget Workshop, January 3, 2024
A question of what spending should be retained in the operating budget or put to the voters: road work or social services.
The board reviewed suggestions from the Budget Committee for changes in the operating budget. The board and the committee are still in the deliberation phase. The board will be responding to these suggestions with a new proposed budget.
Selectman Morin, who is the board’s representative on the Budget Committee, reported that the committee thought that road work should remain in the operating budget, rather than moved to a warrant article, as this work was so essential to the town that the town should not risk having a warrant article rejected by the voters. To achieve this the committee cut $164k from the proposed operating budget and added back into the budget part of the $200k of subcontracted roadwork and paving that the board had proposed to be a warrant article. Much of what the committee suggested removing from the budget were social services, particularly the Recreation Department and the various social assistance budget lines.
Selectman Shirland remarked that the views of the committee members who advocate for these cuts to social services are not representative of the views of the town as a whole. Selectman Morin pointed out that these committee members were elected by the town.
The bulk of the meeting was a line-by-line review of the committee’s proposed changes to the budget and discussions of how to respond to those changes.
At present the board is anticipating presenting 15 warrant articles on the town ballot for over one million dollars of spending. There were discussions of a warrant article to fund a full-time Fire Chief at a salary of $60k/yr, and a warrant article to construct a new Police Station to be located next to the current Fire Station. The original plans for the Fire Station, from about 20 years ago, envisioned this to be eventually done.
Other News
The Office of the Right-to-Know Ombudsman has opened an investigation into the town’s responses to right-to-know requests.
The Presidential Primary will be held at Nottingham School on Tuesday, January 23. The town’s Democratic and Republican party organizations are collaborating to provide the poll workers with free meals throughout the voting hours of 7 am to 7pm. They are seeking volunteers to bring items.
The Budget Committee is holding public hearings, one on the town budget on Tuesday, January 9, and the other on the school budget on Thursday, January 11.
Saturday, January 13 is the town bonfire.
For those who are closely following what’s happening with the ongoing saga of the termination of the Fire Chief and Lieutenant, the comment sections of the recent articles on the Fire Department - one on the staffing shortage causing the station to be unstaffed for New Years weekend and to instead rely on on-call responders, the other on its election of a new Fire Chief - may be interesting.
Watch the video: (Note: the audio is poor in this video. There’s severe static and the microphone for the Town Administrator does not appear to be working properly.)