CHESTERVILLE – Residents bought a grader, cut $24,000 out of the budget and opted against Saturday town meetings at the 2015 annual town meeting on Monday night.
The 3-hour meeting drew nearly 100 residents, 45 articles and plenty of debate over $725,000 in department requests and a proposed property tax assessment of $556,000 if the budget should pass. Significant discussion began immediately with Article 4, which raised the state’s LD1 tax levy limit from $500,498.
Some residents supported voting against the article and holding the line against future increases, pointing to the 11.4 percent increase in the municipal property tax assessment should the town meeting warrant pass as recommended. Town officials and other residents, however, said that the proper place to reduce the budget’s impact was on each article that authorized an expenditure, not by voting against the LD1 limit increase. The LD1 article passed by a written vote of 54 in favor and 37 opposed.
Residents approved two cuts to the selectmen-recommended budget: $5,000 out of the requested $30,000 to pay for discounted real estate tax payments and $19,000 out of the Public Works Department’s budget of $287,826.
Selectman Scott Gray suggested the first cut, which came out of money used to pay the 3 percent discount awarded to residents that pay their taxes within 30 days of tax bills going out. Those early payments, selectmen noted, helped reduce the amount of money Chesterville borrows to run town operations between the start of the fiscal year and the collection of taxpayer money. However, Gray said, the town typically used less than $25,000 to pay for those discounts.
In the Public Works Department, $18,000 had been set aside to replace a truck body on a used truck with significant issues. Residents opted against raising those funds, as well as correcting a mistake on the FICA calculation for public works’ personnel. That mistake existed on other personnel articles as well, but was corrected only for public works at the town meeting.
Residents did approve the purchase of a 1990 John Deer 670-B grader for $25,000 in appropriated funds, plus another $5,000 garnered through trading in the town’s 1971 F-12 Cat grader. The existing grader, Highway Foreman Patrick McHugh and others said, required significant repairs to operate and perhaps even pass inspection. Additionally, parts for the machine were no longer widely available.
The new grader will make many tasks, such as ditching, shoulder work, shimming and grading roads, much easier, according to McHugh.
Residents voted down a proposal to hold the annual town meeting Saturday afternoon, with several questioning the need for a change. The idea had been proposed as a way to potentially improve attendance, with the annual town meeting occurring on a Saturday at 1 p.m. rather than a Monday evening after residents had gotten off work. If the change had been approved, voting would have occurred on the preceding Thursday.
However, residents declined to make a change. An experiment to hold the Farmington town meetings on Saturday, some pointed out, had not resulted in markedly higher attendance. A hand-count vote easily defeated the proposed change.
Moving toward the 3-hour mark, residents swiftly approved the creation of a Highway Committee. Consisting of at least five members appointed by the selectmen, the committee would assist HcHugh and the Public Works Department in looking after town roads. Similar committees are utilized to make recommendations to the selectmen in a number of local communities.
“I strongly recommend you pass this article,” McHugh said.
Moderator Jim Grippe led the assembly in a moment of silence for friends and neighbors that had been lost over the previous year.
I realize I am not a genius, however those at the meeting voted down the article on trying a Saturday PM meeting. I did not realize that if it fails in Farmington, it fails everywhere. The last articles flew by, passed without much if any discussion. People were tired from working all day, had to get home so they could work the next day, had babysitters that needed to get home so they could go to school the next day ,or a variety of other reasons. In my ignorance I guess the bottom line is, lets have a meeting, lets spend, spend and spend some more, and lets get it done as fast as we can. When we get our tax bills and start complaining, look in the mirror, as you only have yourself to blame.