Budget being readied for April 27 town meeting

Voters will then head to the polls
on June 11
By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — On Saturday, April 27, at 9 a.m. in the gymnasium at the Morton Avenue Municipal Building, residents will vote on the warrant making up the 2013-14 fiscal year budget. Articles approved on the final Saturday of the month will then go out to a referendum ballot to be decided at the polls on Tuesday, June 11 at the town office.

    Several weeks prior to the town meeting citizens had the opportunity to attend a public hearing on the proposed approximate $3,935,460 gross spending plan — this figure represents an increase of slightly more than $28,700 or nearly .75 percent from the current year — with both the Board of Selectmen and the Budget Advisory Committee on April 3.
    The most recent budget figures includes just under $1.9 million from various revenue sources, a little more than $32,800 compared to the 2013 fiscal year for a 1.76 percent increase. After the revenues have been applied to the gross budget an amount of nearly $2,036,000 would need to be raised through property taxes. This total represents a $4,120 or .20 percent decrease from the current year’s budget.
    The draft of the warrant presented at the April 3 public hearing includes eight articles. The session provided the opportunity for comments and questions on each individual article. Selectmen will vote on the final articles and the wording to be brought to the April 27 town meeting.
    “This is basically the overall town government, the operations,” Selectman Scott Taylor said about the third warrant article, which asks if a little more than $3,652,000 would be raised and appropriated for town operations. The articles is broken down into 15 different items where the money would go, and a question from the audience asked why $8,000 is being asked for social services, compared to a sum of $6,950 from the previous year.
    “What we did last year, we capped our support to an agency at $1,000,” Town Manager Jack Clukey said. He explained this year the eight social services all asked for $1,000, where as for 2012-13 a pair of organizations sought a lesser amount. “This year Pine Tree Hospice requested $1,000, from $750, and the same with the Red Cross,” Clukey said.
    Other questions asked for more information on the $24,220 listed for recreation facilities and another $48,000 for recreation programming — both of which are the same totals as the year before. Clukey said recreation facilities “is the operation and maintenance part of our town facilities,” which includes the ice skating rink, the ball fields, the beach and boat launch on Sebec Lake, basketball court and more.
    The recreation programming is money used for activities, which the town contracts with the Piscataquis Regional YMCA and Foxcroft Academy. The $48,000 could be split between the two entities, but the recreation committee makes recommends on expenditures and the selectmen then makes the ensuing decisions.
    Another question asked why the warrant has a small number of articles compared to years past. “This is the article format we had last year, and it was this group that favored fewer articles than the 20-odd we had in the past,” Clukey said.
    Budget Advisory Committee member Chris Maas said he favored seeing the various financial numbers close together, rather than spread out over a number of warrant articles. Select member Jane Conroy added that she heard feedback that previous longer warrants caused some confusion and were time consuming.
    Resident Don Benjamin said in the interest of transparency more descriptive articles, and a greater number, would be helpful in enabling voters to understand how money is being spent and where it is being spent. “I would ask the Board of Selectmen be more descriptive,” he said.
    Budget Advisory Committee member Steve Grammont said the warrant contains the same number of line items as in previous years, the line items were simply condensed into a smaller number of articles.
    The next article on the warrant asks if a little more than $132,000 would be raised and appropriated for capital reserve to fund capital equipment. A specific question asked why the total for cemeteries was reduced to $5,000 from $7,500 and Clukey responded, “Our goal was to come in with a municipal budget without having to raise what we could collect in property taxes.”
    He said nearly all of the seven line items in capital reserve are reduced sums from 2013 — only public works is for the same amount. “This is probably not a capital budget we could present next year, but it is one we can say in fiscal year 2014 we can get by with,” Clukey said, as the numbers will likely increase for next year.
    Article No. 5 asks for $54,500 to be raised and appropriated for capital reserve to fund capital improvements to town buildings and facilities, and includes $5,700 in revenues for a net amount to be raised of $48.800. The article details seven types of town facilities as “a little bit of money is going a lot of ways in town,” Taylor said.
    “Lawn mowing would not be in this, but it would be making a new ball field,” Grammont said. Taylor added that the $8,800 earmarked for recreation would include upgrades to the baseball field the town owns at the fairgrounds to make the surface safer.
    On April 27 residents will be asked to appropriate $96,670 from the state for capital improvements and maintenance of town roads and bridges. “This is just using all the money the state would give us for local roads,” Clukey said.
    “This $96,000 is for paving, only for paving,” Maas said, adding that the operations budget for public works covers snow plowing and maintenance of gravel roads.
    “We are falling further and further behind on our paving,” Clukey said, as Maas added the town is spending only about a fourth of what it should to take care of its approximate 35 miles of paved roads.
    Grammont said the town budget used to include monies for paved roads, but then a decision was made to use just the funds received from the state. He said this figure has been reduced over time, and money was sought in addition to what can be allowed to be raised through the LD1 limits — no such requests are being made for 2013-14. “We tried last year and the year before and it was voted down by the public,” Grammont said.
    Clukey said during the current year road monies were used to fix a portion of Park Street where the surface was uneven and unsafe. “We are going to try this year to do other sections that are safety issues,” he said.
    The eighth and final warrant article concerns proposed adoptions to the Land Use Regulations Ordinance, dealing with the location of LED signs in different areas of town than are currently permitted. “This is a work in progress, we expect we will have Land Use Ordinance language to present to the public,” Clukey said, as the planning board and selectmen are working on drafting potential amendments.