Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting

Thanks. I lost by 12 votes. Okay, you're all set. Ch. Did you get my message? I did, but that wasn't helpful to me. Okay.

All right. We're going to call to order the board of Selecman. Monday, December 22nd. Um, just as a note, obviously you don't have the ability to turn on and off microphones in this room. A reminder, selectmanoplas. All right. So, um, thank you for taking time out from your holiday. um and on relatively short notice. Um I want to call the board together tonight. So hopefully we can vote on a proposed budget to send to the budget committee after this meeting. Um if you remember last Tuesday, um as the budget was coming into focus, we asked David and Cheryl to run a few more numbers for us. Um by end of week, the budget had come into focus. And so on Friday, I sat with Cheryl and David and um bas at the request of Cheryl sort of made a few more adjustments to the budget and I'm going to propose that that be the starting point for a discussion tonight of whether we can make that the budget that we send to the budget committee. There's three things that have changed since last Tuesday. So the um when we sat on Friday, I made it clear and I think everyone agrees that we know that people in town are very focused on the tax rate and if at all possible, we wanted to deliver a year-over-year tax decrease on the town portion of the tax budget. So that is one outcome of tonight. When I'm done with the sort of the update, you will see that we are proposing to cut year-over-year taxes by 2%. Um the two big changes are one on road reclamation and paving. Um we had decreased significantly what Tim our head of DPW had asked for and based on that on Friday I suggested that we add back an additional 83,000 to that budget item. It now is 565,000 in total. Still

less than was originally asked for but it's 83,000 higher than last Tuesday. And how would that align with what the CIP recommendation was? Um, I think it was still 674 was the recommendation.

So, it's still below what CIP has requested. The SIS So, obviously roads are important part of this town. We do a good job of maintaining them. So, that felt like something we should do to keep the roads strong. You know, we also have a great library. Unfortunately, we do not have a good library HVAC system. Um, and the HVAC system has been sort of revealed to be worse than previously thought. And so we're not in a position, I don't think, to fully fund that replacement this year, but my suggestion was and add an additional $80,000 to the library movement CRF, which brings it to a total of 140,000. So those two changes from last Tuesday um based on some clarity at the end of last week as I said um our town our the proposed budget on the table for tonight and obviously it's up for discussion uh and hopefully approval will decrease tax the tax rate from the town's portion by 2% while you know I think still adequately funding the town's operating budget and capital infrastructure. So, we don't have anyone here for the public, but I want to open it up to the board for discussion, any questions, any further um changes. Cheryl can't be here tonight. She um has a conflict. Um but you know, the goal is to approve this and send it to the budget committee.

Am I understanding correctly that the budget we received a couple of weeks ago was about 6% increase in taxes year-over-year. And Yep. 6%. Where we are now is a decrease. We've cut it back from an increase of 6%, but now we're cutting taxes. That is correct. Okay. And am I correct in understanding because I know we were going through the budget quite a bit over the last few weeks that we're not seeing like a decrease in services. We're still able to provide what the community expects us to provide. is that

in fact there's some increased services here. There's all these increased services and yet more money for the ball fields, more money for um a fire department, uh reallocated money and a bunch of other line items. And so overall, other than a small decrease in paving, which has a lot to do with the timing of the cycle of paving, I would say overall it would be an increase of services. And we're funding a new uh position in the fire department which has no tax impact in this budget because right when we go through numbers that basically there's no little to no tax impact because somehow we're

with the two jobs that are that it is replacing the part-time health officer and the emergency manage services director and then going to full-time. It's probably a $60,000 increase. Yeah. But but it's still delivering it a negative budget and we're funding the police department the way that the chief has asked us to fund in an adequate way for them to continue the services that they provide. I think we made only two changes to the police department budget. Very small changes. They were t more of timing changes rather than sort of reflecting the reality of how we hire people in the town. And like but you're talking 1% of the police department budget.

Yeah. And we feel confident in our DPW and Tim Sweeney that they're going to be able to do what they need to do in this next year with the budget that we have and the paving budget and like they're going to get all the salt to take care of the roads in the winter time. Like it seems sufficient that way. It'll be everything the community expects. I spoke with Tim on Friday and he was quite happy that we were doing this. And I also learned what the backside of Brown Hill route is. He always says the backside. Yeah. So, is that the one that goes to Dun Barton Center Road? Yes.

Could you use some TLC? Well, I just I really want to commend this board and um all of the staff and department heads who have brought us a good budget and somehow we were able to make it the select board is able to make it even better than what we were handed. And to deliver a tax cut at this time and this year under these conditions, I'm I'm really impressed. So, I'm really grateful to be on this board with all of you and and be able to deliver this budget to the budget committee. So, I I supportive of where it stands right now.

Um I took some time to review the um the Heritage Commission's request. um they have spent um significantly more than their budget utilizing the heritage fund uh the last two years uh in an attempt to um meet and exceed the expectations that are laid out in New Hampshire uh RSA, the statute governing heriting heritage commissions. Um, I know they had come in here initially asking for a $3,000 budget. Uh, the board had lowered it to $750. I am wondering if the board would entertain um a $2,000 total budget for the Heritage Commission as a one-time um consideration. Uh given the lower tax rate, it should not affect that percentage very much at all. It's a $1,250 increase. Uh, and that will certainly go a long way to helping them open up the lower floor for the public.

Seeing as it doesn't change the tax impact in any meaningful way, I support that. Do you want to make one vote? Somebody just have one motion for those three items and see if we have consensus on I would agree. Okay. Let's add back 12, 1250. So it would bring the total up to 2,000 per heritage. Yeah. Given the numbers we're looking at, that seems reasonable.

So you want to combine all of those. So it's a um 140,000 total for library maintenance CRF. Um 565,000 total for road reclamation and paving fund and 2,000 total for the heritage commission. Um just line item there. And those just Dave, those are net numbers including the money that was in the last version. Yes. Yeah, those are the I will second that if that was a motion. Oh yeah, that was a motion. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. Can we say it louder?

A five nothing vote. So that's updating the changes. And now should we vote to submit it to the budget committee? I don't I think once we vote on the changes that's our budget. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The bottom line is the budget. All right. Well, that's easy enough. So Chris will now shepherd this to the budget committee. Uh and then as always, the town will have the final say at town meeting on this. But I'd like to thank all the department heads where they started, David and Cheryl who run your process, the board um for being both flexible but very precise going line by line last time around. Um and we have no other business. So do we have a motion to adjurnn? Motion. Second.

All those in favor say I. I opposed. Nay. Eyes have nothing. We are adjourned.