The $12.9 million budget proposed by the Town Council for the coming year was approved Tuesday night by the vast majority of roughly 100 people at the annual Town Meeting in the high school gymnasium.
The only significant debate during the 90-minute meeting centered around funding for the new ambulance and EMT service, which represented the largest part of a 13% increase in the budget over the current year.
The town’s Fire Department budget went from $566,000 to $1.6 million as a result of the new emergency and ambulance staff. This amount allows the town to hire four more cross-trained EMT/firefighters next year in addition to the eight hired this year.
Of the $12.9 million budget, $7.5 would be raised by taxes and the rest would come from other revenue sources, including state revenue sharing, excise taxes, and non-tax general fund revenues.
A proposed amendment to cut the Fire Department budget by $330,000 – the salaries of the additional four employees – was rejected after the fire chief, council chair and council vice chair spoke in favor of fully funding the new EMT/emergency service approved by voters last year.
Among those who spoke out against the full budget were former councilor Jeff Minihan as well as current councilors Sam Flinkstrom and Joel Martin; all three promoted the idea of building up the department more slowly, giving the town time to consider other options for funding, including regionalization with neighboring departments and using TIF funding.
“Tonight, I am simply asking this community to slow down enough to fully consider the long-term consequences of what we are approving,” said Minihan, the only councilor to vote against the new service at last year’s Town Meeting. “Once recurring staffing, equipment, and operational obligations are established, they rarely move backward. The ratchet clicks one direction.”
Flinkstrom suggested that slowing down the hiring process for the Fire Department would let the department look at how well the department meets the town’s need with the eight people already hired.
“We should allow that recently implemented model time to operate before we make the decision,” he said. “Eight full-time employees will provide better service to the town than the previous contracted ambulance and volunteer Fire Department. We should continue with this new level of service until a time at which there is demonstrated need to increase it.”
Martin suggested these are particularly hard years to burden the taxpayers.
“As it stands in the past two years residents have already been expected to bear the weight of a town hall renovation and a town reevaluation which resulted with some residents experiencing a heightened tax burden,” Martin said. “This is not simply a two-year project, but an initiative that will have long-term and potentially indefinite financial implications for taxpayers.
Fire Chief Nick Hamel told the crowd that the full complement of 12 was needed to properly staff the department for all three shifts. And Council Chair Mallory Cook noted that the council had been talking about this for years and that she believed it was a “moral” decision to properly staff the department.
Councilor Paul Schumacher voted in favor of the budget as proposed, but said the council would be looking into various ways to save money in the future in this budget, including regionalization.
Martin said councilors had talked with the Berwick fire chief, who indicated that town might be interested in regionalization.
