by Mary Grow

Vassalboro select board members were confronted by three angry budget committee members at their May 29 meeting. (See the May 22 issue of The Town Line, p. 2, for related information.)

Committee chairman Peggy Schaffer, supported by members Douglas Phillips and Frank Richards, told select board members they failed to provide timely financial information this spring. As a result, budget committee members made recommendations they likely would not have made, had they been properly informed.

Schaffer’s main issue was the question of Vassalboro’s undesignated fund balance (commonly known as surplus), money in reserve for emergencies.

During the budget process, resident John Melrose and others recommended a municipality have enough money in reserve for three months’ expenditures.

Budget committee members did not know where Vassalboro’s reserve fund stood, so they hesitated to recommend drawing from it for 2025-26 expenses. They also wanted to minimize increasing local taxes. A third option was to recommend less spending than some members would have preferred.

The lack of information, Schaffer said, was because town officials had not received annual audit reports for either 2023-24 or 2022-23. Now that last year’s report is in town officials’ hands, it shows a comfortable surplus – information that budget committee members should have had when they began deliberations.

Now, Schaffer said, budget committee members might have to make amended recommendations from the floor during the June 2 annual town meeting, a process she does not like.

Richards was surprised that town officials did not have current figures on surplus in town accounts, instead of relying on audits.

Select board chairman Frederick “Rick” Denico, Jr., said he began nagging the auditors in January. Their response: Other towns were three years behind getting their reports.

Town Manager Aaron Miller explained later that Vassalboro’s auditors, RHR Smith and Company, in Buxton, fell behind during the Covid epidemic – like many other Maine auditing firms, he added – and have been trying to catch up ever since. This spring, Vassalboro paid the company an additional $6,000 to complete the audit.

An additional complication is that Dawn Haywood is Vassalboro’s third bookkeeper since 2021, Miller said. Part of the bookkeeper’s job is working with the auditors.

Budget committee members Donald Breton and Dallas Smedberg also attended the May 29 meeting. Both asked procedural questions.

In other business May 29, Miller introduced summer intern Peter Lefresne, who will work 15 hours a week through August, courtesy of the internship program at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service.

Board members voted unanimously to authorize engineer Jeff Senders to go ahead with long-discussed plans to redesign the traffic pattern at the transfer station.

They agreed to forward a draft revised TIF (Tax Increment Financing) document, prepared by board member Michael Poulin, to the town’s attorney for review. The outline of expenditures from Vassalboro’s TIF funds, derived from taxes on the gas pipeline through town, also needs approval from state officials and town voters before it can replace the present version.

In response to select board member Chris French’s repeated proposal to expand the select board from three to five members, Miller had found state requirements. Chapter 121, subchapter 2, Section 4A of paragraph 2526, says:

“A town may determine at a meeting held at least 90 days before the annual meeting whether 3, 5 or 7 will be elected to each board and their terms of office.

(1) Once the determination has been made, it stands until revoked at a meeting held at least 90 days before the annual meeting.
(2) If a town fails to fix the number, three must be elected. If a town fails to fix the term, it is for one year.”

Board members authorized the manager to draft a ballot question to be submitted to town voters.

Miller and Lefresne are looking into the possibility of installing an outdoor fitness park in Vassalboro. The manager showed a brief video from National Fitness Campaign and said a $50,000 grant is available toward the $250,000 cost.

Miller emphasized he does not plan to ask for tax money for the project. The idea might be “pie in the sky,” he allowed, but he saw no harm in looking into it. Farmington, Lewiston and Hampden have installed such parks, he said.

The manager is also exploring new ways, mostly technological, to communicate with residents. Denico recommended for now, putting more information, like town meeting reminders, on the Vassalboro Facebook page.

Discussion continued on two on-going topics, the town’s personnel policy and the foreclosed property adjoining the transfer station on Lombard Dam Road.

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 5 (only one week after the prior one). After that, the board is not scheduled to meet until Thursday evening, June 26.

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro’s annual town meeting for 2025 will be in two sessions, eight days apart and in two different locations.

On Monday, June 2, voters will assemble in the Vassalboro Community School gymnasium, at 6:30 p.m., to talk about and vote on articles number one through 41. On Tuesday, June 10, polls will be open at the town office for written-ballot voting on Articles 42 and 43.

The open meeting decisions cover the 2025-26 budgets for the town and the school and a variety of policy issues. At the polls, voter will decide whether to affirm the 2025-26 school budget approved June 2; and they will elect municipal officials: one select board member, two school board members and five members of the Vassalboro Sanitary District board of trustees.

Vassalboro’s annual town meeting for 2025 will be in two sessions, eight days apart and in two different locations.

The town meeting warrant is on the town website, vassalboro.net. The list of candidates for local offices is also on the website, under the heading absentee ballots.

At the June 2 open meeting, the first article asks voters to elect a moderator to run the meeting. Richard Thompson, who has moderated Vassalboro’s meetings for years, has retired. Town Manager Aaron Miller said in April he has arranged for Jeff Frankel, from Windsor, to be available.

Art. 2 calls for election of five members of the budget committee. According to the website, current members whose terms end at this meeting are William Browne, Donald Breton, Dallas Smedberg, Peggy Schaffer, and Phillip Landry. Those elected last year and continuing in office to June 2026 are Frank Richards, Nate Gray, Douglas Phillips, Laura Jones and Richard Bradstreet.

Voters are then asked to approve 2025-26 tax due dates (Art. 3) and more than $2 million in non-tax revenues (Art. 4). Requests for expenditures begin with Art. 5, asking for more than $2.9 million to run town departments next year, and continue at intervals through many other articles.

Select board members began discussing expenditures in February. They and budget committee members held many long meetings, some including discussions with town employees and people requesting funds for organizations or otherwise affected by budget recommendations.

The two committees’ recommendations for capital reserve funds (Art. 6) disagree substantially. The budget committee majority does not recommend any funds be set aside for transfer station equipment or to replace plow truck #2; the select board recommends $53,738 and $50,000, respectively. For replacing truck #6, the select board recommends $78,000, the budget committee $50,000.

At their May 15 meeting, select board members made plans to amend Art. 6 and Art. 7 from the meeting floor. They plan to ask voters to take $125,000 to be used for the Mill Hill bridge (under Art. 7), if it fails before repairs are organized, from unexpended fund balance, not raise the money from taxes under Art. 6.

Select board and budget committee members also disagree on their recommendations for outside agencies (Art. 25) and Delta Ambulance (Art. 26).

Art. 25 includes $4,000 for the Window Dressers program, endorsed by the select board and not the budget committee. For ambulance service, select board members recommend voters appropriate the full bill, $154,665. Budget committee members recommend taking advantage of the early-payment discount, and therefore appropriating $146,932.

School board members reduced the first budget they sent to the budget committee by $75,000. The result is that both boards recommend the 2025-26 school budget totaling $10,414,498.24 (in Articles 28 through 41).

New this year is Art. 13, asking voters to approve amendments to the charter of the Vassalboro Sanitary District. This article is the result of months of discussion among town and sanitary district officials and several lawyers.

Other articles Town Manager Miller included in the meeting warrant ask voters to allow select board members to sign contracts, accept insurance settlements, grants and gifts and carry out other appropriate actions during the year.

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro select board members got satisfactory news about town finances at their May 15 meeting.

Auditor Ron Smith, head of RHR Smith, Auditors, in Buxton, said the audit for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2023, is done, and the audit for the year that ended June 30, 2024, will be shared in draft form within a week.

Vassalboro’s surplus account, about $1.7 million as of June 30, 2024, meets recommended standards; it would keep the town running for 90 days in a financial emergency. The Vassalboro school system’s separate surplus is also adequate, Smith said.

Smith was followed by Matt Weaver, from Damariscotta-based First National Wealth Management, who reported that Vassalboro’s investments are doing well so far this year, despite financial uncertainties.

“Overall, we’re please with how the portfolio’s performed,” he summarized.

Weaver recommended no changes in Vassalboro’s conservative financial strategy.

Much of the May 15 meeting was spent re-discussing the draft personnel policy with three town employees. Select board members heard their comments and answered their questions.

In other business, the public works crew was complimented on one project and authorized to go ahead with another.

Select board member Michael Poulin and Town Manager Aaron Miller praised the almost-finished pavilion at Eagle Park, on Route 32 (Main Street), just north of East Vassalboro Village. Public works employee Shawn Bragg said while the crew was working on the roof, a group of bicyclists stopped and had lunch there.

Conservation Commission members plan to add picnic tables made at Vassalboro’s Maine Adirondack Chairs, on Holman Day Road.

Miller said the school department had asked to have the public works crew help with a to-be-planned project to lessen congestion when parents pick up students at the end of the school day. Select board members authorized use of town employees’ time and town materials, if the work is approved by relevant state departments (transportation and, board member Chris French suggested, environmental protection).

Miller proposed taking advantage of an offer of a 150-hour summer intern to help in the town office, from the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. The only cost to the town, he said, would be to send the person to an August workshop. Select board members approved by consensus.

French said a resident asked about mooring a boat in China Lake, near the East Vassalboro landing. Miller advised talking with Kennebec Water District officials, who are concerned about protecting the lake that is their water source.

French raised three issues for future discussion: updating town ordinances, updating the town’s TIF (Tax Increment Financing) document and enlarging the select board. He has repeatedly recommended a five-person select board; perhaps, he suggested, the question could be put to voters in November.

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 29. The preceding Monday, May 26, town functions will be closed for the Memorial Day holiday.