Board of Selectmen Meeting, December 12, 2022

BOS unable to propose budget within the 4% cap. Turns dilemma over to Budget Committee. Town temporarily without an ambulance.

Budgeting

After considerable work cutting the preliminary budget, the board finds its proposed budget still 1.33 percentage points over the 4% tax cap - about $67k. There was considerable debate about whether the board should present to the Budget Committee a budget that falls within the 4% tax cap or whether the board should leave the problem to the Budget Committee to make the most difficult and painful cuts.

An argument advanced in favor of this was that since members of the committee were vocal advocates of the 4% cap, they should be the ones to have to deal with the dilemmas caused by the cap. An argument advanced against that was whether the committee could be entrusted to make responsible cuts, with particular concerns that police and fire might be cut irresponsibly. (The debate is at about 1:05 in the video.) It was decided to turn further work on the budget to the Budget Committee.

Broken Ambulance

The town has had an outstanding order for over a year for a new ambulance so the town would have a backup ambulance. So far, Dodge has been unable to fulfill the order due to supply chain problems. 

As anticipated nearly a couple of years ago, there would be an incident where the town could not provide ambulance coverage. That happened over the weekend of December 10-11 when the leveling mechanism on the town’s sole ambulance broke, putting the ambulance out of commission all weekend. The town had to rely on mutual aid from other towns. 

Wait times for Fords are now less than Dodges. As the issue has become critical, the order has been switched to a Ford. Delivery is still not expected until next year, causing the board to set aside 2022 funds to be expended next year.

Tax Rate Reduction

The tax rate fell from 19.42 to 19.11, largely driven by a reduction in the state education tax.

Watch the video: