Vassalboro budget committee reviews select board’s draft

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro budget committee members reviewed the select board’s draft 2024-25 municipal budget at two lengthy meetings March 19 and March 26.

Both boards’ members are aware that many taxpayers cannot afford a large local property tax increase. They are also aware that the town is facing unavoidable higher costs in many areas. A theme of the meetings was what should be done immediately, what can be postponed and what can be considered unnecessary.

Town Manager Aaron Miller summarized major budget aspects in a hand-out at the March 19 meeting. At that time, he wrote, the select board’s proposed budget of just over $3.9 million was $358,393 higher than the current year’s. At the March 26 meeting, Miller said that increase would raise local property taxes by under one mil ($1 for each $1,000 of valuation).

However, the draft did not include the Kennebec County budget; Miller’s estimated figure represented a 10 percent increase. When the budget was presented at a March 27 county meeting in Augusta, the proposed overall increase in taxes to municipalities was 44 percent (varying by municipality).

County officials did not approve the budget March 27. Another meeting is scheduled for April 9, according to the report in the Central Maine newspapers.

Vassalboro discussions have not yet included the 2024-25 school budget. Local taxpayers funded almost $1.4 million of the current year’s $9 million school budget.

Miller’s summary named four areas with the largest proposed increases: the request from Delta Ambulance; setting aside funds in the assessing account to prepare for a town-wide revaluation; adding to the capital improvements budget; and adding one new employee, to be shared between the public works department and the transfer station.

The last two were discussed at length. Budget committee members made no final recommendations, but straw polls indicated a lack of support for either, as presented.

The substantially increased Delta Ambulance bill for 2024-25 drew brief comments at both meetings. The 2024-25 request is for $110,475. For the current year, the service requested and voters approved $66,285.

Select board chairman Chris French sees no reasonable alternative to Delta. Neither the Augusta nor the Waterville-Winslow ambulance service will add Vassalboro, and a town service would cost $700,000 just for labor costs, he said.

Miller does not expect a revaluation for another four or five years, but recommends setting aside money in preparation.

Proposed capital additions include new and replacement equipment, building maintenance and a new building.

Equipment that select board members recommend includes a new skid-steer, with bucket and snowblower attachments and a trailer to move it, and a replacement loader.

Select board members recommend the skid-steer in 2024-25 because they expect the state will build the promised new North Vassalboro sidewalks this summer; the town is obligated to plow the sidewalks; the loader now used for plowing sidewalks does a poor job and is too big to work on the new walkways without damaging them; and hiring someone to do the work would cost more than buying a machine.

Phillips is concerned that in much of North Vassalboro, houses are so close to the sidewalk that snow would need to be blown into the roadway.

The skid-steer would be used year-round, Miller and select board members said. It would help with town recreational trail maintenance and with shoulder work on roads, for example.

The loader would replace a machine that is almost 25 years old with more than 12,000 hours on it, French said at the March 26 meeting. Miller explained why it is needed and why the proposed skid-steer could not do its work.

Miller’s introductory letter said the town has been offered “a three-year zero percent interest rate plan for both pieces of equipment.” Select board members have discussed asking voters for $79,000 a year for three years.

The new trailer is estimated to cost $12,000.

Also needing more discussion is how soon the town needs a replacement truck for public works and what size it should be.

The two boards continued the discussion select board members have conducted for months about heating and other equipment at the town office. French’s goal is to have the office continue to function through a major storm.

Heat pumps are installed, and generators have been purchased but not installed. Questions remaining include whether to replace the 23-year-old boiler (as a back-up), whether to add another fuel tank and related issues.

Proposed building reserves include adding to the fund for an additional equipment storage building at the public works lot, and starting a maintenance fund for the town-owned former East Vassalboro schoolhouse, which the town leases to the Vassalboro Historical Society.

Schaffer asked whether the “huge” sand and salt building could be used for storage, since Vassalboro uses less road sand than in the past. Discussion included whether a building that contains salt is suitable for machinery and whether better ventilation would help.

Two other pending projects are major transfer station renovations and replacing the culvert on Mill Hill Road, tentatively with a bridge. The transfer station work has a reserve fund; select board members propose starting one for the road. They hope grants will help pay for both.

The main reason for considering adding an employee is safety, French said. An additional plow-truck driver would let road crew members work shorter, less exhausting shifts in snowstorms; and when one of the two transfer station staffers was out, the other would not work alone.

To French’s additional suggestion that taxpayers would save money if winter overtime were reduced, budget committee member Dallas Smedberg suggested plow drivers might appreciate their overtime pay.

Earlier in the year, select board members considered adding a part-time town office employee. They have scrapped that idea, at least for 2024-25.

Discussion of pay increases for town employees was inconclusive. Miller and the select board recommend a 3.2 percent cost of living (COLA) adjustment, plus two percent merit increases (except for two employees who have been with the town so long they are at the top of the pay scale; for them, an equivalent stipend is proposed).

Smedberg commented March 26 that in his experience, it is unusual for people at the top of a pay scale to get anything more than an annual COLA.

On another pay issue, Smedberg asked why the fire chief gets a $10,000 annual stipend, more than any of the select board members, even if French’s proposed $500 extra for the chairman is approved.

Board member Frederick “Rick” Denico, Jr., replied, “We don’t get called out at night or weekends much.”

A Fortin Road resident came to the March 26 meeting to ask that her dirt road be paved, as a safety measure. It has been impassable in recent storms, she said, leaving three households without emergency access.

Budget committee members discussed whether and, if so, when the town could pave all remaining dirt roads, another issue select board members have considered.

The next Vassalboro budget committee meeting was scheduled for Wednesday evening, April 3, unless the forecasted snowstorm led to a change.