D-F selectmen set budget advisory committee

DOVER-FOXCROFT — The meeting schedule is still to be finalized — last year the group met weekly from late February across four sessions leading up to a public hearing the last Wednesday in March — but the 2019-20 Dover-Foxcroft budget advisory committee is in place with four positions set by the selectmen during a Jan. 28 meeting.

James Annis, Christopher Maas, and Katherine Thibault were all reappointed to the nine-member budget advisory committee with terms to expire on June 30, 2021.

Town Manager Jack Clukey said committee member Stephen Robinson is working out of state and he will be unable to serve this year. Bill Clark “will fill the remainder of Steve’s term which ends at the end of this fiscal year, June 30, 2019,” Clukey said before Clark was appointed to the budget advisory committee.

Last year the budget advisory committee discussed various components of the municipal spending plan over three weeks before a joint meeting with the selectmen. The next week featured a public hearing on the proposed budget.

On a Saturday in late April the annual town meeting is held at the Morton Avenue Gym. Items approved at town meeting then go to a referendum validation in June, which includes votes for various municipal positions and the RSU 68 school budget.

“The administration and assessing and protection committees all met to go over budgets,” Clukey said. He said the solid waste and protection committees would be meeting in several days for financial discussion “so it’s a busy committee meeting season.”

In his report, Clukey thanked the Mountain View Correctional facility in Charleston for sending a crew to clean off the Morton Avenue Municipal Building before the previous week’s storm. “They got us ready for the weather we have been having,” the town manager said.

Clukey also said a public meeting on the Piscataquis County Ice Arena was well attended and those present learned the plan is to have ice in place during the month of July. “There is still more to come and I think word is getting out,” he said.

The ice arena is being funded and will be owned by the Libra Foundation and the facility on West Main Street will be managed by Foxcroft Academy. “Foxcroft Academy is working very hard to get all the pieces in place,” Clukey said.